18 ms·

Why Free Software Is More Important Now Than Ever Before

383 points by hexis 13y ago

jamesaguilar 13y ago
Admire him for his dedication, and for his sacrifice, but his message is not getting through, and it's getting through less each day. Freedom is not an end to most people, it is a means (source: I'm one of those people). I'm not sure what tack he needs to take, but the current one is not going to suddenly start working after so many years of not.
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  Stallman does not need to change - either his message or his tack. He is, sadly, right. And the world will hit a confluence of circumstances where we must confront the choice between free/libre software and opaque surveillance. If Mohammed waits long enough the mountain will move.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    I think the literal falsity of your metaphor speaks for itself. Mohammed can wait as long as he wants. The mountain isn't going anywhere. Things don't have to end up a certain way because it's "right" for them to. And being "right" has failed to win many a time.
    - digisign 13y ago
      Mountains actually do move, you don't notice because your lifetime is too short.
  - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
    Well that's just ridiculous. You can't just hand wave and say Stallman's view is right or is the way things should be. Many would not really want to live in Stallman's Utopia. Stallman freely admits that his view probably entails a certain destruction of programming as a profession that is worth more than ditch digging or deincentivizes a lot of innovation ... I like RMS as a person, and he was a brilliant programmer at one point, but let's be honest, he might as well be using a type writer with a telegraph system. What is it that you think shows RMS as being clearly right?
    - pekk 13y ago
      Wait, are you seriously saying that programmers should create artificial scarcities and not share their work in order to ensure the value of their profession? You seem to think the profession is parasitic rather than creating value
      - mwfunk 13y ago
        Not freely sharing the fruits of one's labors is hardly "parasitic". Rather, it would be more accurate to call it "not sharing", which is a very very different thing. This whole style of argumentation is a hallmark of RMS' rhetorical style, and is something that turns off a lot of people to his message, even those who might otherwise agree with many of his principles. If you have to use hyperbolic language to demonize those you disagree with (equating programmers of proprietary software as parasites), and putting those you agree with on a pedestal (equating programming of free software as the only way to create value), then people who are not already in the choir you're preaching to (which is what you're doing) will conclude that your beliefs are basically just you romanticizing the whole situation rather than something you came to through any sort of real intellectual process that holds any weight. You could be 100% correct and no one would ever know it, because it's being expressed as a lot of kneejerk emotional reactions to a lot of things. RMS has always done the same thing, using his fundamental choice of words to smear and denigrate those he disagreed with by turning them all into strawmen, and elevating his own philosophy beyond simply espousing a particular virtue to presenting it as a stark moral choice to which any variation or disagreement is immoral. This automatically puts him into the category of people who are either wrong, or who have come to a correct conclusion through completely invalid means (pretty unlikely, but not impossible- broken clocks are right twice a day, etc.). I guess it's more exciting to think about these issues as being a bunch of stark, binary moral choices with no gray areas, and sorting everyone into those who are 100% on board with your cause one one side, and a bunch of sinners or heretics or whatever on the other side, but the historical track record for those sorts of philosophers and philosophies is not stellar, to say the least.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
- ewzimm 13y ago
  Because it's so easily modified and distributed, free software has become the most common software in the world. Consumers might not care about licenses, but anyone who develops software has gained an enormous amount from free software. Without the FSF and others like them, we would likely be far behind in software development because exposure to source code might be a special privilege.
- Nux 13y ago
  I'd love to look at some numbers. I'd say that his message gets to more and more people and the current circumstances are making free software more relevant than ever. I think the ratio of people caring (or not caring) is the same, but sheer numbers must have increased with time. How are you trusting your Windows/Macos today? :) Imo, his tack will not work any better because most people continue to not give a shit about their freedoms. Take away "convenience" or "entertainment" and you've got yourself a revolution.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    > trusting your Windows/Macos today Well enough for day-to-day purposes. And therein lies the problem with Stallman's perspective, as it affects the common man.
    - Nux 13y ago
      Voilà. :)
  - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
    Oh hogwash. RMS is principled but his "all or nothing" approach is less effective than PETA. The reality is most people don't understand Stallman, neither his detractors or supporters. For most of you that "support" Stallman, he would deride your love of open source as little more being evil or masochistic. To paint detractors or non-followers of Stallman as mindless entertainment watchers or whatever is very simplistic.
- tjr 13y ago
  If freedom is not an end for you, but a means, in what respect is it a means?
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    Depends on what freedom you're talking about. To give one example, the freedom to vote is important to me because I think the world would get less fun if we had a monarchy or autarchy. But if there was evidence of some form of government where I didn't get to vote but I would be happier and more fulfilled? Happy to give democracy up if the evidence is convincing enough. Freedom of vote is not an end, it is a means to good governance. Similarly with most freedoms.
    - jeremyjh 13y ago
      That is simply a fantasy though. No one can ever credibly make such a guarantee. Instead what we have to rely on is the principal that given adequate individual freedoms society is mostly self-correcting. You will never get the most ideal outcomes but you certainly will not live in the worst possible world either. Free software no is different.
      - jamesaguilar 13y ago
        Hypotheticals are all fantasy. Calling mine that is a non-criticism. Also, there are some exemplars that make my view slightly less fantastic than you might say. Chinese governance is better than plenty of places that have universal suffrage, for example. > Instead what we have to rely on is the principal that given adequate individual freedoms society is mostly self-correcting. This principle has not been proved to my satisfaction.
- M2Ys4U 13y ago
  I don't think Stallman needs to change his approach or message. We do, however, need somebody to augment his arguments with ones that will reach people like you.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    Granted. I was inappropriately treating Stallman as "the free software movement." He does not, himself, need to change.
  - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
    Rather than worrying about rhetoric, though, why don't we question whether Stallman is actually right or whether his Utopia is somewhere we really want to live?
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      Plenty of people do, for example, anyone who chooses to work at a SaaS or proprietary packaged software company. They may not question it with their words, but they do with their actions.
      - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
        =) Well, right. But I mean, I feel like those that support RMS view should question whether he is right and not just how he can package his message better. There are many that fully understand RMS AND agree with him but there are MANY that think they agree with RMS but do not really understand him. I always find it amusing when some Linux podcast has RMS on and the hosts are not very sophisticated on RMS and think "Oh, awesome, we love Linux and free software rocks and RMS is so cool and such a big name in free software, we love RMS" And then RMS comes on the show and basically tells the hosts they are worse than Pol Pot or any NAZI you could ever imagine!
    - zxcdw 13y ago
      What is his utopia? That all software would be free software? I for one would love to live in such a world. Why? Because then I could trust and be free with my computing. Now I can't, and I value my trust and freedom over conveinience and entertainment, as such I haven't opted-in for many common usages of computers and computing. It would be nice, but no thanks. Would the world be a better place if Firefox and GNU/Linux were proprietary? I doubt that. How could we trust Tor? How could we(as in the whole internet-connected world) have any form of secure communications which we could trust? In fact, I think we would see far more oppression and totalitariatism in such an alternative, I believe free software helps tremendously with this as it gives more freedom and makes it harder to take freedoms away and harder to enforce blind faith on authorities.
- exceptione 13y ago
  If freedom is a means then the question should be answered: to what? A man could be free or otherwise he is bound to servitude. → If freedom is a means—possibly intermediately—to obtain freedom then freedom is still an end. → If freedom is not a means—possibly intermediately—to obtain freedom then one's end will be to serve someone else.
itchitawa 13y ago
Sadly, the word "free" always has strings attached. For GNU, the GPL license disallows "The freedom to make and distribute copies of your modified versions, when you wish." You're not allowed to attach non-free code or remove the over-complex license agreement, which can make the whole software useless for many purposes. It's not right to call GPL software free, it should rather be "no cost and slightly restricted use".
- epistasis 13y ago
  I wish he'd stop using the word "free" and only use "libre." The FSF and Stallman's definition of "free" (as it pertains to freedom) is not mine, and I have found few that actually agree with it. Open source's definition of freedom is far more universal, I believe. And using "libre" also gets around the "free as in pizza" distinction.
  - thejteam 13y ago
    I don't like "free" but I wouldn't want a new term to explain to a layperson either.
    - kunai 13y ago
      Libre. Liberty. Done.
      - quadrangle 13y ago
        Yeah, but remember, as long as others don't agree, it's tough. There's "free" "libre" and "open". The only answer is to say: THOSE THINGS. So, use "free/libre/open" i.e. FLO
  - chatman 13y ago
    Open source's definition is incomplete when it comes to protecting the freedom of users. And, libre doesn't imply "free as in pizza" to me.
comex 13y ago
As much as his core message is debatable, it's usually pretty coherent and logical. However, I'd like to criticize one specific part of this essay: the claim that Chrome auto-updates are a "universal backdoor". Although silent updates tend to viscerally feel a bit creepy, they differ little in practical consequence from regular click-through ones: it's not like most users verify the binaries of every package update on their system, so having the user click through just makes an attacker with a fake update wait a little longer. Note that Chrome auto-updates can be turned off, and both the updater and the updated software are (mostly) open source and you are free to compile your own version, so it's hard for me to see the problem. (for the record - it would be nice to have a system to prevent one server from distributing malicious updates to one user, perhaps by verifying with multiple independently owned servers. However, I do not know of any mainstream software that does that, including free Linux distributions, so it's unfair to criticize Chrome for the lack.)
- chatman 13y ago
  > updated software are (mostly) open source and you are free to compile your own version The "mostly" part kills your argument. That means, the updates contain non-free parts and are hence unsafe. Chrome should be avoided if Chromium or Firefox works for you.
  - comex 13y ago
    Any binary compiled by a third party could be malicious, whether it's supposed to be compiled from free source code or not, whether it's Google or Mozilla or Debian. Verifiable compilation would partially solve this and would indeed make the non-free parts a problem, but this is another thing that nobody is doing (yet). edit: Of course this also has nothing to do with the silentness of the updates. :p
    - M2Ys4U 13y ago
      One of the benefits of having the four freedoms is you, the user, can choose who (if anybody) to trust. Don't trust Mozilla to build a non-malicious binary from the Firefox source? Get somebody you do trust to build it. Or build it yourself. Of course when you get down to it you have to trust that there exists a compiler that isn't malicious but I think the point still stands
rmrfrmrf 13y ago
I would highly encourage anyone who hasn't heard Richard Stallman speak before to look up a few interviews with him before reading this article. This article is written exactly how he speaks, so the tone and cadence are much more dynamic if you have the proper background. I have to say that Stallman very recently inspired me to start contributing to open source projects. A few weeks ago, I made my first (one word, lol) contribution to an open source project on Github. As minor of a fix as my code was, it felt really great to be part of something like that. It also caused me to do a lot of introspection: I found myself, up until that point, becoming flat-out bored with "consuming" content. I now find myself, rather than frequenting (ok, I still frequent) HN, looking for open questions on StackOverflow to answer or finding open source projects to contribute to. I wonder if that's a sign that, eventually, communities like Reddit and HN will be usurped by social media sites that focus less on consumption and more on contribution. Based on my recent experiences with contribution, I strongly encourage everyone else to do the same; it's really a much more rewarding way to procrastinate!
- chatman 13y ago
  That is good to know RMS inspired you. Just a suggestion, instead of contributing to "open source" projects, look for "free software" projects.
  - eurleif 13y ago
    I understand that "free software" is what RMS prefers, but why is it better to contribute projects using that terminology? Aren't most open source projects also free software projects, even if they don't call themselves that? Isn't contributing to free software a good thing, regardless of what it calls itself?
    - e12e 13y ago
      First, I think it is great that you contribute to open source projects! However: > Aren't most open source projects also free software projects, even if they don't call themselves that? No, I don't think that would be correct --- if you agree that there is a difference between free software and open source (and I think there is). Free software takes steps to protect the rights and freedom of [edit: all of] its users, both "first generation" (those you directly distribute software to), and "later generations" (those that might get a copy, or modified copy via one or more intermediaries). So, a project can't be rightly called free software (as opposed to "just" open source) unless it is distributed under a licence that takes steps to protect its users (which in general would mean (A|L)GPL). Now, there are probably a few projects that might call themselves "open source" (or not use the term free software), but still use such a licence -- but I don't think they are in the majority. In particular, a lot of software that is free on the surface, isn't as free as it probably should be; namely server side software that is licensed under (L)GPL rather than AGPL. Or rather, it is licensed with the "user" being a server operator or business, not an "end user". This facilitates services that lock in your email, chats, blog posts, social relationships etc, without (necessarily) giving the end user a "way out". I'm far from the point where I recommend everything should be AGPL -- but if we are talking about end user freedom, then there's a lot of software projects that do very little to protect that -- and in that sense, probably shouldn't be considered free software.
w1ntermute 13y ago
I love how rms has been preaching for decades, while most of the tech community snidely ignored him. And yet, in the end, everything he warned about turned out to be right.
- kaolinite 13y ago
  Such as? I've heard this said a lot but not heard any examples of non-obvious statements that he predicted, which have turned out to be true.
  - metaleks 13y ago
    He predicted eBook DRM in the 90s: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  - Decade 13y ago
    Sometimes the obvious needs to be said. Most obvious: In 1997, Stallman wrote an essay in which the protagonist requires a copyright holder's permission to read a book. In 2009, Amazon remotely pulled "1984" out of Kindles. From the beginning, Stallman has said that closed software holds users hostage. In 2003, Stallman started saying that Windows spies on users. Now, besides the features Stallman was complaining about, we find out that the NSA works to make software less secure, Microsoft actively gives vulnerabilities to the NSA, and Apple is tardy about applying security updates. Both Microsoft and Adobe are trying to get users to switch to unwanted annual subscriptions instead of traditional license ownership. Stallman has also said that cell phones spy on users. That is increasingly apparent, with cell phone records available for the taking and fake cells to do individual stings.
    - mikevm 13y ago
      > Stallman has also said that cell phones spy on users. That is increasingly apparent, with cell phone records available for the taking and fake cells to do individual stings. I used to work for a phone company. They had a very simple to use web app that lets you input anyone's phone number and _instantly_ locate him on the map. None of that Hollywood "keep him on the line" bullshit.
dcre 13y ago
I feel similarly about this to the way I feel about vegetarianism: doesn't eating 95% less meat have virtually the same effect as eating 100% less? (Not that I've reduced my meat intake by that much.) I don't really believe that consequences are the only thing that matters (and RMS seems like someone who would agree with that). I guess I'm weak-willed. How many people read his perspective, agree with it (or at least have it resonate deeply with them), and yet still use plenty of non-free software? Google Search, Gmail, virtually any iOS or Android app, .NET, Windows, Adobe, etc. I know I do.
- thristian 13y ago
  RMS and the FSF have always talked about Free software as a moral and ethical issue, rather than achieving some measurable benefit, so saying "reducing proprietary-software usage by 95% is almost as good" is a different discussion than the one RMS is trying to have. Which is not to say that it's a Bad Thing To Discuss, just different. Personally, I try to stick to Free software wherever I can, but there are definitely times where I say "screw it" and use something proprietary. For example, my government has an income-tax-filing application that's free-to-download but proprietary. Technically I could get a paper copy of the form, fill it out by hand and send it in, but in the long run I'd rather have the temporary safety of automatic form-validation over the essential liberty of tax-software autonomy. Maybe that's completely unjustified and I'm a terrible person, maybe it's the right decision for me but the wrong decision for society at large, I dunno. If I had an infinite lifespan and could take the time to re-implement all the proprietary software I encounter, I'd like to think I would, or at least contribute, but given I've got Stuff To Do... Honestly, I think Step 1 of the Free software movement is just to encourage people to think about the consequences of their (software licensing) actions. Some people will agree, some people will disagree, some people will agree in principle but put "ensure software Freedom" at the bottom of their list, just underneath "learn Esperanto", and I think that's OK. As usual, the real problem is exploitation of the uninformed and uneducated, and the more people there are with informed, educated opinions the better off society will be.
- jfb 13y ago
  I think there's an interesting sort of parallel between the differences between Stallman/FSF and those of the O'Reilly "open source" camp; and the differences between deontological and consequentialist ethics. In some ways, it seems like software consequentialism fits neatly into Gabriel's "Worse-is-Better" categorization. As a self-hating meat-eating OS X using Kantian, this is dismaying to me.
memset 13y ago
I (like many of us) have been reading and following RMS for many years now. It is fascinating how things that I used to feel were impractical about his ideas ("if proprietary software gets the job done, then why shun it? We live in a world where we must be practical, etc.") now seem imperative. This point struck home with his mention of education: how frustrating it is that so much of it lives in, say, Matlab, as compared to any other numerical package! How frustrating that we all depend on Microsoft Excel (or Google Docs) to do pivot tables! How frustrating that we depend on github to store our code. How frustrating that we depend on AWS for our servers. I spend a lot of my professional life migrating from one closed system (eg, deployments on Rackspace to AWS; cc processing from PayPal to Braintree; accounting from Quickbooks to Netsuite) to another. I wonder if, in practice, so many of these frustrations would have been alleviated if we, as an industry, had adopted the "impractical" view of insisting on using only free software.
- hnriot 13y ago
  Nonsense, we don't depend on Excel for pivot tables, lots of other software can do that, likewise we don't depend on github, AWS or any of the other examples. This is total hogwash.
- Udo 13y ago
  I don't think Github belongs on that list.
  - cscurmudgeon 13y ago
    Last I checked Github itself is neither open source nor free.
    - Udo 13y ago
      It's a service designed around a free and open protocol, the other examples are binary software packages. You can use any local git repository as a drop-in replacement. Github is neither a dependency nor a walled garden for most people, but the other software on that list definitely is. Git is the tool people use, Github is just a public repository. There is no question that Github is itself closed source, but it doesn't really share key attributes with the other examples mentioned either.
ginko 13y ago
> Non-free software still makes the users surrender control over their computing to someone else, but now there is another way to lose it: Service as a Software Substitute, or SaaSS, which means letting someone else’s server do your own computing activities. I have lots of respect for RMS and I very much agree with his stance against SaaS, but I feel creating FSF versions of terms is only harming the message he is trying to tell. It reminds me of 1984's newspeak in a way.
- cma 13y ago
  Gratis
  - mkr-hn 13y ago
    Gratis is just another word for free. It's no less ambiguous.
    - dkuntz2 13y ago
      It's libre vs gratis. Libre is free as in speech. Free to adjust and modify. Gratis is free as in beer. Free to consume.
      - cfn 13y ago
        Yes, I think this is an English problem. In Portuguese, for example, there is "Gratis" and "Livre" which have too different meanings and there is no possible confusion between the two. Maybe they should say that the software should be "set free" instead.
        mkr-hn 13y ago
        It's not an English problem. The language already has tools to clarify. Free (to modify) Free (to use) Free (to resell) People just don't use them when they're trying to make a slogan, and it causes confusion. English is full of overloaded words.
wslh 13y ago
I am waiting for the GNU mea culpa. While I strongly support free software movements, they are not up to the height of the current circumstances. How can I replace my mobile phone OS (and hardware) with a free and completely open source? I am waiting for that. It seems the new mobile trend (iOS/Android) caught them off guard.
- tjr 13y ago
  You might look into helping the Replicant project, which is working on free software for mobile phones: http://replicant.us/ http://replicant.us/
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  I don't understand what you think GNU has to apologize for. GNU is limited by the amount of resources that people into them. In these days of NSA spying and such, the usefulness to society of GNU's having enough resource is becoming clear. But the people most to blame for GNU not having those are ... everyone who haven't contributed (which I'll admit includes me). Those to blame for GNU not having resources probably wouldn't include GNU itself.
  - wslh 13y ago
    Every organization is limited by resources. I can restate my original (downvoted) comment as: I have a high esteem and respect for GNU but I think they can do more to fight in new causes. It's an intuition.
- davexunit 13y ago
  Waiting around won't advance free software. We could use your help.
  - wslh 13y ago
    I am not waiting passively.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- pekk 13y ago
  You give inspiration, but what are your sources? Are you a personal witness?
bluecalm 13y ago
I am for one ok with propriety software. A lot of people want to make money by writing closed binaries and a lot of people want to buy them. Arguable a lot of cool things came out of this model. In ideal world you could write your software, make it open source so advanced users could hack/verify security of it and still don't lose any (or many) customers, unfortunately it doesn't work that way in our world. What I am not ok with though are monopolies, lock-ins and influencing education. There is no excuse to teach/use/promote any of the propriety software in schools. There is no reason to use any of that in government institutions. If one vendor has so prevalent position that there is no (or almost none) alternative then it's a monopoly and it's time to deal with it using antitrust laws (which by the way aren't nearly strong enough these days). If there is no free alternative developing it is great project for government to sponsor. If people not force-feed Excel, Word, Photoshop, Matlab etc. during their education days still want to use that for convenience later in their career - let them. Just give them real choice by educating them with open tools.
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  "I am for one ok with propriety software... What I am not ok with though are monopolies, lock-ins and influencing education." I think one important point is that closed-source proprietary software inherently implies lock-in. Some portion of proprietary file formats are crappy bags of bytes because the company wants a lock-in and some portion are that way because of simple laziness and you can't easily sort which. The other thing about people using matlab is that society at large, the scientific community and such-and-such large groups pay the price of crap being caught within matlab and whoever writes the original code can just move on.
  - spongle 13y ago
    Actually no. Microsoft at least (this thread mainly targets them) doesn't lock you into any file formats. Why? a) I've always been able to export/extract data at will. b) All their protocols and formats are specified openly here: http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/default.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/default.as...
GeneralMayhem 13y ago
I'm still not sure, after all these years of almost identical rants and writings, that I fully understand RMS's views. I don't see why freedoms 2 and 3 (distribution) have anything to do with freedoms 0 and 1 (control). If you want to know what's happening to your data, all you need to know is what's happening on your computer, which means you need to see the source. That's a cause I agree with 100%. I don't understand why you also need to be able to give a copy to your friend.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  It goes with a moral value that RMS and FSF have been very persistent about: strengthening the community and helping your neighbour. RMS even once gave a talk at one of 2600's HOPE conventions where he said that given a moral dilemma of having to give a copy of a proprietary program to a friend and violate the license versus not giving them a copy and sticking to the license, it would be best to go ahead and violate it. Of course, he later went on to explain that free software would serve to get rid of this moral dilemma and that it would be optimal to not use proprietary software at all. RMS' speeches always highlight the value of the community and the role free software plays in strengthening bonds. I believe he's right, as file sharing in general has become an invaluable part of daily life in the developed world.
  - GeneralMayhem 13y ago
    Sure, but again, that has nothing whatsoever to do with the rhetoric of freedom. It dilutes the message, and it's needlessly antagonistic. It alienates people like me who don't think the model of getting paid for what you build is a bad thing. And of course, his scorched-earth, perfect-or-nothing style of morality doesn't help - open source should, even to RMS, be a lot better than Windows, but he never acknowledges it. When you have little enough public support to begin with, focusing on the things that separate you from potential allies isn't a good way to do business. Of course, I'm not anywhere near as successful or accomplished as RMS, and probably never will be, so maybe I shouldn't tell him how to do his job. Maybe he just doesn't give a shit if anything actually changes, so long as he stays pure, and if that's what he needs to sleep at night, then fine. But that doesn't make it look any less counterproductive from where I'm sitting.
chernevik 13y ago
I am constantly amazed by and grateful for free software. I write with vi, code in python, work with data in MySQL and Postgres, grapple with text with sed and awk and a host of utilities. I teach courses on MySQL, I think the Windows / closed approach has unnecessarily deadened the average user's ability to appreciate and explore and use their computers. Open source, as idea and software, is great. But. "When you use proprietary programs or SaaSS, first of all you do wrong to yourself, because it gives some entity unjust power over you. . . . It also wrongs others if you make a promise not to share." Yeah, why? Because RMS says so? There is NO possibility of a closed source usage that is "just"? Is there anything like an argument for this, outside of some Marxist-derivative account of the inevitability of economic structures? That closed source might be bad is possible -- that it is so bad that no reasonable person of good will can possibly hold some other opinion really isn't. Freedom is the right to make decisions, and some times bad decisions. Claiming authority to judge the bad, and thus invalid, decisions, really lays the foundations for some serious power moves. Maybe RMS thinks corporations and free contract and market forces are some kind of sham, and maybe he's right, but it isn't as if there isn't another point of view. Why do I have to sign up with a core ideology to be supportive of open source? Actually, why do I have to sign up with an ideology that sounds positively hostile to a lot of what I think and believe? The technical arguments for open source are tremendous. The ethical arguments for it aren't bad. But setting the whole debate in terms agreement with one man's morality is a non-starter for me. Now I can use and support open software without signing up for the whole ideology. And I do. But the two are so associated that I often feel my own integrity requires using some bandwidth expressing disagreement with large chunks of the "open source philosophy". That's a poor use of time, and it diffuses the best arguments. Insisting on open source as some moral imperative is poor philosphy, and poor rhetoric.
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  "Freedom is the right to make decisions, and some times bad decisions. Claiming authority to judge the bad, and thus invalid, decisions, really lays the foundations for some serious power moves." Uh, having the technical means to make unilateral decisions for someone else (often secretly) is what lays the basis for "serious power moves" as we've seen with the NSA. "Judging someone" is also known as "expressing your opinion". Stallman expressing his opinion hardly gives him the serious power that, say, NSA arrogates to itself by installing backdoors in people's computer, using secret laws to seize private keys from service providers and so-forth.
auggierose 13y ago
I respect RMS and his point of view. But I don't believe in any religion, not even the RMS variety.
b1daly 13y ago
I know I'm not unique in being bugged by RMS's ideas but I do feel the need to attempt to articulate why. There has been, in the rarified world of tech commenters, an increasing number of people claiming Stallman has been proven correct by recent events. This seem to converge around the rise of iOS propriety "walled garden" (and similar systems) and the Snowden leaks. I don't see it. The argument shouldn't be that systems have come to dominate that are closed.Stallman is making a moral argument, as such there need to be proportional harms being enabled by such closed systems. Potential harms are not the same as actual and his arguments seem to focus on those. In the mean time the world goes about its business and people are happily using all sorts of software. Along with free (as in beer) software like that of Google, and relatively secure systems like those of the big tech companies, many are also use various flavors of "libre" and open source software. An accounting of harms, potential or otherwise, needs to have benefits included, otherwise it remains an exercise in ideology. This nags at me as well in hysterical discussions of NSA spying, which sometimes strike me as a sophisticated form of chicken littleism. If one stubbornly sticks to an absolutist form of ideology for many years, eventually some of the predicted harms, or at least similar ones, might come to pass. But this didn't mean the ideology is correct. Without a more complete and balanced analysis it's hard to say. I feel similarly about the absolute conviction displayed by some that NSA spying is an absolute wrong. While it does seem bad In some ways, it is not a slam dunk in my view. I can see some value in spying if it substitutes for more violent methods of control, and if it does actually lessen crime/terrorism.
chestnut-tree 13y ago
I am fine with closed-source applications. For me, the most important thing is open file formats, protocols and codecs. Open formats, protocols and codecs should not be owned by any company. Most programs manipulate data in some way. Open formats let you switch from one program to another without losing your data. It opens up opportunities for paid, free or SaaS solutions and users can choose whatever suits them best. For most people, their concern is about their data: what happens if they stop using program x which manipulates their data in a proprietary file format. PDF is a good example of this - once a proprietary file format, it is now an open standard. There are dozens, if not hundreds of free and paid-for programs that let you create, edit, view or save PDF files. (Some of the Free Software viewers are better than Adobe's bloated Reader software.) Just imagine what the state of graphics programs might be if Photoshop PSD files or Illustrator ai files were open formats? Or if everyone used a common word-processing or spreadsheet format?
keithpeter 13y ago
Nice article to point students at: software has less 'valence' for them than, say, clothing (c.f. No Logo, Naomi Klien) and so we might get a discussion going. I'm surprised that noone has mentioned the recent restarting of the gNewSense project, version 3.0 is Debian Squeeze with blobs removed. I'm posting this using the live ISO from a USB stick with a USB wifi adaptor (Thinkpads have wifi cards that need closed firmware). Everything else works. The release announcement was posted on HN but only gathered 3 points...
EGreg 13y ago
RMS pretty much saying the same thing he always says, but this time in Wired.
hacknat 13y ago
>>If the users don’t control the program, the program controls the users. I hate that he says this. And, he says versions of this a lot. Of course there are times when he is right, but I think a lot of times he’s not. Most of us make trade-offs. I use Gmail, I know that it might not be the best product anymore, I am certainly aware that my private correspondence is being crawled by Google. Here’s the important thing, I don’t care. It’s not that I trust Google, I just don’t think that trust is something that I value from my email provider (others might, and they should seek their email service elsewhere). Why would you ever trust a company? Any why is it owed to you that you should get to live in a world where you can?

383 points by hexis 13y ago

Admire him for his dedication, and for his sacrifice, but his message is not getting through, and it's getting through less each day. Freedom is not an end to most people, it is a means (source: I'm one of those people). I'm not sure what tack he needs to take, but the current one is not going to suddenly start working after so many years of not.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
Stallman does not need to change - either his message or his tack. He is, sadly, right. And the world will hit a confluence of circumstances where we must confront the choice between free/libre software and opaque surveillance. If Mohammed waits long enough the mountain will move.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  I think the literal falsity of your metaphor speaks for itself. Mohammed can wait as long as he wants. The mountain isn't going anywhere. Things don't have to end up a certain way because it's "right" for them to. And being "right" has failed to win many a time.
  - digisign 13y ago
    Mountains actually do move, you don't notice because your lifetime is too short.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  Well that's just ridiculous. You can't just hand wave and say Stallman's view is right or is the way things should be. Many would not really want to live in Stallman's Utopia. Stallman freely admits that his view probably entails a certain destruction of programming as a profession that is worth more than ditch digging or deincentivizes a lot of innovation ... I like RMS as a person, and he was a brilliant programmer at one point, but let's be honest, he might as well be using a type writer with a telegraph system. What is it that you think shows RMS as being clearly right?
  - pekk 13y ago
    Wait, are you seriously saying that programmers should create artificial scarcities and not share their work in order to ensure the value of their profession? You seem to think the profession is parasitic rather than creating value
    - mwfunk 13y ago
      Not freely sharing the fruits of one's labors is hardly "parasitic". Rather, it would be more accurate to call it "not sharing", which is a very very different thing. This whole style of argumentation is a hallmark of RMS' rhetorical style, and is something that turns off a lot of people to his message, even those who might otherwise agree with many of his principles. If you have to use hyperbolic language to demonize those you disagree with (equating programmers of proprietary software as parasites), and putting those you agree with on a pedestal (equating programming of free software as the only way to create value), then people who are not already in the choir you're preaching to (which is what you're doing) will conclude that your beliefs are basically just you romanticizing the whole situation rather than something you came to through any sort of real intellectual process that holds any weight. You could be 100% correct and no one would ever know it, because it's being expressed as a lot of kneejerk emotional reactions to a lot of things. RMS has always done the same thing, using his fundamental choice of words to smear and denigrate those he disagreed with by turning them all into strawmen, and elevating his own philosophy beyond simply espousing a particular virtue to presenting it as a stark moral choice to which any variation or disagreement is immoral. This automatically puts him into the category of people who are either wrong, or who have come to a correct conclusion through completely invalid means (pretty unlikely, but not impossible- broken clocks are right twice a day, etc.). I guess it's more exciting to think about these issues as being a bunch of stark, binary moral choices with no gray areas, and sorting everyone into those who are 100% on board with your cause one one side, and a bunch of sinners or heretics or whatever on the other side, but the historical track record for those sorts of philosophers and philosophies is not stellar, to say the least.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
ewzimm 13y ago
Because it's so easily modified and distributed, free software has become the most common software in the world. Consumers might not care about licenses, but anyone who develops software has gained an enormous amount from free software. Without the FSF and others like them, we would likely be far behind in software development because exposure to source code might be a special privilege.
Nux 13y ago
I'd love to look at some numbers. I'd say that his message gets to more and more people and the current circumstances are making free software more relevant than ever. I think the ratio of people caring (or not caring) is the same, but sheer numbers must have increased with time. How are you trusting your Windows/Macos today? :) Imo, his tack will not work any better because most people continue to not give a shit about their freedoms. Take away "convenience" or "entertainment" and you've got yourself a revolution.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  > trusting your Windows/Macos today Well enough for day-to-day purposes. And therein lies the problem with Stallman's perspective, as it affects the common man.
  - Nux 13y ago
    Voilà. :)
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  Oh hogwash. RMS is principled but his "all or nothing" approach is less effective than PETA. The reality is most people don't understand Stallman, neither his detractors or supporters. For most of you that "support" Stallman, he would deride your love of open source as little more being evil or masochistic. To paint detractors or non-followers of Stallman as mindless entertainment watchers or whatever is very simplistic.
tjr 13y ago
If freedom is not an end for you, but a means, in what respect is it a means?
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  Depends on what freedom you're talking about. To give one example, the freedom to vote is important to me because I think the world would get less fun if we had a monarchy or autarchy. But if there was evidence of some form of government where I didn't get to vote but I would be happier and more fulfilled? Happy to give democracy up if the evidence is convincing enough. Freedom of vote is not an end, it is a means to good governance. Similarly with most freedoms.
  - jeremyjh 13y ago
    That is simply a fantasy though. No one can ever credibly make such a guarantee. Instead what we have to rely on is the principal that given adequate individual freedoms society is mostly self-correcting. You will never get the most ideal outcomes but you certainly will not live in the worst possible world either. Free software no is different.
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      Hypotheticals are all fantasy. Calling mine that is a non-criticism. Also, there are some exemplars that make my view slightly less fantastic than you might say. Chinese governance is better than plenty of places that have universal suffrage, for example. > Instead what we have to rely on is the principal that given adequate individual freedoms society is mostly self-correcting. This principle has not been proved to my satisfaction.
M2Ys4U 13y ago
I don't think Stallman needs to change his approach or message. We do, however, need somebody to augment his arguments with ones that will reach people like you.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  Granted. I was inappropriately treating Stallman as "the free software movement." He does not, himself, need to change.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  Rather than worrying about rhetoric, though, why don't we question whether Stallman is actually right or whether his Utopia is somewhere we really want to live?
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    Plenty of people do, for example, anyone who chooses to work at a SaaS or proprietary packaged software company. They may not question it with their words, but they do with their actions.
    - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
      =) Well, right. But I mean, I feel like those that support RMS view should question whether he is right and not just how he can package his message better. There are many that fully understand RMS AND agree with him but there are MANY that think they agree with RMS but do not really understand him. I always find it amusing when some Linux podcast has RMS on and the hosts are not very sophisticated on RMS and think "Oh, awesome, we love Linux and free software rocks and RMS is so cool and such a big name in free software, we love RMS" And then RMS comes on the show and basically tells the hosts they are worse than Pol Pot or any NAZI you could ever imagine!
  - zxcdw 13y ago
    What is his utopia? That all software would be free software? I for one would love to live in such a world. Why? Because then I could trust and be free with my computing. Now I can't, and I value my trust and freedom over conveinience and entertainment, as such I haven't opted-in for many common usages of computers and computing. It would be nice, but no thanks. Would the world be a better place if Firefox and GNU/Linux were proprietary? I doubt that. How could we trust Tor? How could we(as in the whole internet-connected world) have any form of secure communications which we could trust? In fact, I think we would see far more oppression and totalitariatism in such an alternative, I believe free software helps tremendously with this as it gives more freedom and makes it harder to take freedoms away and harder to enforce blind faith on authorities.
exceptione 13y ago
If freedom is a means then the question should be answered: to what? A man could be free or otherwise he is bound to servitude. → If freedom is a means—possibly intermediately—to obtain freedom then freedom is still an end. → If freedom is not a means—possibly intermediately—to obtain freedom then one's end will be to serve someone else.

itchitawa 13y ago

Sadly, the word "free" always has strings attached. For GNU, the GPL license disallows "The freedom to make and distribute copies of your modified versions, when you wish." You're not allowed to attach non-free code or remove the over-complex license agreement, which can make the whole software useless for many purposes. It's not right to call GPL software free, it should rather be "no cost and slightly restricted use".

epistasis 13y ago
I wish he'd stop using the word "free" and only use "libre." The FSF and Stallman's definition of "free" (as it pertains to freedom) is not mine, and I have found few that actually agree with it. Open source's definition of freedom is far more universal, I believe. And using "libre" also gets around the "free as in pizza" distinction.
- thejteam 13y ago
  I don't like "free" but I wouldn't want a new term to explain to a layperson either.
  - kunai 13y ago
    Libre. Liberty. Done.
    - quadrangle 13y ago
      Yeah, but remember, as long as others don't agree, it's tough. There's "free" "libre" and "open". The only answer is to say: THOSE THINGS. So, use "free/libre/open" i.e. FLO
- chatman 13y ago
  Open source's definition is incomplete when it comes to protecting the freedom of users. And, libre doesn't imply "free as in pizza" to me.

comex 13y ago

As much as his core message is debatable, it's usually pretty coherent and logical. However, I'd like to criticize one specific part of this essay: the claim that Chrome auto-updates are a "universal backdoor". Although silent updates tend to viscerally feel a bit creepy, they differ little in practical consequence from regular click-through ones: it's not like most users verify the binaries of every package update on their system, so having the user click through just makes an attacker with a fake update wait a little longer. Note that Chrome auto-updates can be turned off, and both the updater and the updated software are (mostly) open source and you are free to compile your own version, so it's hard for me to see the problem. (for the record - it would be nice to have a system to prevent one server from distributing malicious updates to one user, perhaps by verifying with multiple independently owned servers. However, I do not know of any mainstream software that does that, including free Linux distributions, so it's unfair to criticize Chrome for the lack.)

chatman 13y ago
> updated software are (mostly) open source and you are free to compile your own version The "mostly" part kills your argument. That means, the updates contain non-free parts and are hence unsafe. Chrome should be avoided if Chromium or Firefox works for you.
- comex 13y ago
  Any binary compiled by a third party could be malicious, whether it's supposed to be compiled from free source code or not, whether it's Google or Mozilla or Debian. Verifiable compilation would partially solve this and would indeed make the non-free parts a problem, but this is another thing that nobody is doing (yet). edit: Of course this also has nothing to do with the silentness of the updates. :p
  - M2Ys4U 13y ago
    One of the benefits of having the four freedoms is you, the user, can choose who (if anybody) to trust. Don't trust Mozilla to build a non-malicious binary from the Firefox source? Get somebody you do trust to build it. Or build it yourself. Of course when you get down to it you have to trust that there exists a compiler that isn't malicious but I think the point still stands

rmrfrmrf 13y ago

I would highly encourage anyone who hasn't heard Richard Stallman speak before to look up a few interviews with him before reading this article. This article is written exactly how he speaks, so the tone and cadence are much more dynamic if you have the proper background. I have to say that Stallman very recently inspired me to start contributing to open source projects. A few weeks ago, I made my first (one word, lol) contribution to an open source project on Github. As minor of a fix as my code was, it felt really great to be part of something like that. It also caused me to do a lot of introspection: I found myself, up until that point, becoming flat-out bored with "consuming" content. I now find myself, rather than frequenting (ok, I still frequent) HN, looking for open questions on StackOverflow to answer or finding open source projects to contribute to. I wonder if that's a sign that, eventually, communities like Reddit and HN will be usurped by social media sites that focus less on consumption and more on contribution. Based on my recent experiences with contribution, I strongly encourage everyone else to do the same; it's really a much more rewarding way to procrastinate!

chatman 13y ago
That is good to know RMS inspired you. Just a suggestion, instead of contributing to "open source" projects, look for "free software" projects.
- eurleif 13y ago
  I understand that "free software" is what RMS prefers, but why is it better to contribute projects using that terminology? Aren't most open source projects also free software projects, even if they don't call themselves that? Isn't contributing to free software a good thing, regardless of what it calls itself?
  - e12e 13y ago
    First, I think it is great that you contribute to open source projects! However: > Aren't most open source projects also free software projects, even if they don't call themselves that? No, I don't think that would be correct --- if you agree that there is a difference between free software and open source (and I think there is). Free software takes steps to protect the rights and freedom of [edit: all of] its users, both "first generation" (those you directly distribute software to), and "later generations" (those that might get a copy, or modified copy via one or more intermediaries). So, a project can't be rightly called free software (as opposed to "just" open source) unless it is distributed under a licence that takes steps to protect its users (which in general would mean (A|L)GPL). Now, there are probably a few projects that might call themselves "open source" (or not use the term free software), but still use such a licence -- but I don't think they are in the majority. In particular, a lot of software that is free on the surface, isn't as free as it probably should be; namely server side software that is licensed under (L)GPL rather than AGPL. Or rather, it is licensed with the "user" being a server operator or business, not an "end user". This facilitates services that lock in your email, chats, blog posts, social relationships etc, without (necessarily) giving the end user a "way out". I'm far from the point where I recommend everything should be AGPL -- but if we are talking about end user freedom, then there's a lot of software projects that do very little to protect that -- and in that sense, probably shouldn't be considered free software.

w1ntermute 13y ago

I love how rms has been preaching for decades, while most of the tech community snidely ignored him. And yet, in the end, everything he warned about turned out to be right.

kaolinite 13y ago
Such as? I've heard this said a lot but not heard any examples of non-obvious statements that he predicted, which have turned out to be true.
- metaleks 13y ago
  He predicted eBook DRM in the 90s: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
- Decade 13y ago
  Sometimes the obvious needs to be said. Most obvious: In 1997, Stallman wrote an essay in which the protagonist requires a copyright holder's permission to read a book. In 2009, Amazon remotely pulled "1984" out of Kindles. From the beginning, Stallman has said that closed software holds users hostage. In 2003, Stallman started saying that Windows spies on users. Now, besides the features Stallman was complaining about, we find out that the NSA works to make software less secure, Microsoft actively gives vulnerabilities to the NSA, and Apple is tardy about applying security updates. Both Microsoft and Adobe are trying to get users to switch to unwanted annual subscriptions instead of traditional license ownership. Stallman has also said that cell phones spy on users. That is increasingly apparent, with cell phone records available for the taking and fake cells to do individual stings.
  - mikevm 13y ago
    > Stallman has also said that cell phones spy on users. That is increasingly apparent, with cell phone records available for the taking and fake cells to do individual stings. I used to work for a phone company. They had a very simple to use web app that lets you input anyone's phone number and _instantly_ locate him on the map. None of that Hollywood "keep him on the line" bullshit.

dcre 13y ago

I feel similarly about this to the way I feel about vegetarianism: doesn't eating 95% less meat have virtually the same effect as eating 100% less? (Not that I've reduced my meat intake by that much.) I don't really believe that consequences are the only thing that matters (and RMS seems like someone who would agree with that). I guess I'm weak-willed. How many people read his perspective, agree with it (or at least have it resonate deeply with them), and yet still use plenty of non-free software? Google Search, Gmail, virtually any iOS or Android app, .NET, Windows, Adobe, etc. I know I do.

thristian 13y ago
RMS and the FSF have always talked about Free software as a moral and ethical issue, rather than achieving some measurable benefit, so saying "reducing proprietary-software usage by 95% is almost as good" is a different discussion than the one RMS is trying to have. Which is not to say that it's a Bad Thing To Discuss, just different. Personally, I try to stick to Free software wherever I can, but there are definitely times where I say "screw it" and use something proprietary. For example, my government has an income-tax-filing application that's free-to-download but proprietary. Technically I could get a paper copy of the form, fill it out by hand and send it in, but in the long run I'd rather have the temporary safety of automatic form-validation over the essential liberty of tax-software autonomy. Maybe that's completely unjustified and I'm a terrible person, maybe it's the right decision for me but the wrong decision for society at large, I dunno. If I had an infinite lifespan and could take the time to re-implement all the proprietary software I encounter, I'd like to think I would, or at least contribute, but given I've got Stuff To Do... Honestly, I think Step 1 of the Free software movement is just to encourage people to think about the consequences of their (software licensing) actions. Some people will agree, some people will disagree, some people will agree in principle but put "ensure software Freedom" at the bottom of their list, just underneath "learn Esperanto", and I think that's OK. As usual, the real problem is exploitation of the uninformed and uneducated, and the more people there are with informed, educated opinions the better off society will be.
jfb 13y ago
I think there's an interesting sort of parallel between the differences between Stallman/FSF and those of the O'Reilly "open source" camp; and the differences between deontological and consequentialist ethics. In some ways, it seems like software consequentialism fits neatly into Gabriel's "Worse-is-Better" categorization. As a self-hating meat-eating OS X using Kantian, this is dismaying to me.

memset 13y ago

I (like many of us) have been reading and following RMS for many years now. It is fascinating how things that I used to feel were impractical about his ideas ("if proprietary software gets the job done, then why shun it? We live in a world where we must be practical, etc.") now seem imperative. This point struck home with his mention of education: how frustrating it is that so much of it lives in, say, Matlab, as compared to any other numerical package! How frustrating that we all depend on Microsoft Excel (or Google Docs) to do pivot tables! How frustrating that we depend on github to store our code. How frustrating that we depend on AWS for our servers. I spend a lot of my professional life migrating from one closed system (eg, deployments on Rackspace to AWS; cc processing from PayPal to Braintree; accounting from Quickbooks to Netsuite) to another. I wonder if, in practice, so many of these frustrations would have been alleviated if we, as an industry, had adopted the "impractical" view of insisting on using only free software.

hnriot 13y ago
Nonsense, we don't depend on Excel for pivot tables, lots of other software can do that, likewise we don't depend on github, AWS or any of the other examples. This is total hogwash.
Udo 13y ago
I don't think Github belongs on that list.
- cscurmudgeon 13y ago
  Last I checked Github itself is neither open source nor free.
  - Udo 13y ago
    It's a service designed around a free and open protocol, the other examples are binary software packages. You can use any local git repository as a drop-in replacement. Github is neither a dependency nor a walled garden for most people, but the other software on that list definitely is. Git is the tool people use, Github is just a public repository. There is no question that Github is itself closed source, but it doesn't really share key attributes with the other examples mentioned either.

ginko 13y ago

> Non-free software still makes the users surrender control over their computing to someone else, but now there is another way to lose it: Service as a Software Substitute, or SaaSS, which means letting someone else’s server do your own computing activities. I have lots of respect for RMS and I very much agree with his stance against SaaS, but I feel creating FSF versions of terms is only harming the message he is trying to tell. It reminds me of 1984's newspeak in a way.

cma 13y ago
Gratis
- mkr-hn 13y ago
  Gratis is just another word for free. It's no less ambiguous.
  - dkuntz2 13y ago
    It's libre vs gratis. Libre is free as in speech. Free to adjust and modify. Gratis is free as in beer. Free to consume.
    - cfn 13y ago
      Yes, I think this is an English problem. In Portuguese, for example, there is "Gratis" and "Livre" which have too different meanings and there is no possible confusion between the two. Maybe they should say that the software should be "set free" instead.
      - mkr-hn 13y ago
        It's not an English problem. The language already has tools to clarify. Free (to modify) Free (to use) Free (to resell) People just don't use them when they're trying to make a slogan, and it causes confusion. English is full of overloaded words.

wslh 13y ago

I am waiting for the GNU mea culpa. While I strongly support free software movements, they are not up to the height of the current circumstances. How can I replace my mobile phone OS (and hardware) with a free and completely open source? I am waiting for that. It seems the new mobile trend (iOS/Android) caught them off guard.

tjr 13y ago
You might look into helping the Replicant project, which is working on free software for mobile phones: http://replicant.us/ http://replicant.us/
joe_the_user 13y ago
I don't understand what you think GNU has to apologize for. GNU is limited by the amount of resources that people into them. In these days of NSA spying and such, the usefulness to society of GNU's having enough resource is becoming clear. But the people most to blame for GNU not having those are ... everyone who haven't contributed (which I'll admit includes me). Those to blame for GNU not having resources probably wouldn't include GNU itself.
- wslh 13y ago
  Every organization is limited by resources. I can restate my original (downvoted) comment as: I have a high esteem and respect for GNU but I think they can do more to fight in new causes. It's an intuition.
davexunit 13y ago
Waiting around won't advance free software. We could use your help.
- wslh 13y ago
  I am not waiting passively.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

pekk 13y ago
You give inspiration, but what are your sources? Are you a personal witness?

bluecalm 13y ago

I am for one ok with propriety software. A lot of people want to make money by writing closed binaries and a lot of people want to buy them. Arguable a lot of cool things came out of this model. In ideal world you could write your software, make it open source so advanced users could hack/verify security of it and still don't lose any (or many) customers, unfortunately it doesn't work that way in our world. What I am not ok with though are monopolies, lock-ins and influencing education. There is no excuse to teach/use/promote any of the propriety software in schools. There is no reason to use any of that in government institutions. If one vendor has so prevalent position that there is no (or almost none) alternative then it's a monopoly and it's time to deal with it using antitrust laws (which by the way aren't nearly strong enough these days). If there is no free alternative developing it is great project for government to sponsor. If people not force-feed Excel, Word, Photoshop, Matlab etc. during their education days still want to use that for convenience later in their career - let them. Just give them real choice by educating them with open tools.

joe_the_user 13y ago
"I am for one ok with propriety software... What I am not ok with though are monopolies, lock-ins and influencing education." I think one important point is that closed-source proprietary software inherently implies lock-in. Some portion of proprietary file formats are crappy bags of bytes because the company wants a lock-in and some portion are that way because of simple laziness and you can't easily sort which. The other thing about people using matlab is that society at large, the scientific community and such-and-such large groups pay the price of crap being caught within matlab and whoever writes the original code can just move on.
- spongle 13y ago
  Actually no. Microsoft at least (this thread mainly targets them) doesn't lock you into any file formats. Why? a) I've always been able to export/extract data at will. b) All their protocols and formats are specified openly here: http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/default.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/default.as...

GeneralMayhem 13y ago

I'm still not sure, after all these years of almost identical rants and writings, that I fully understand RMS's views. I don't see why freedoms 2 and 3 (distribution) have anything to do with freedoms 0 and 1 (control). If you want to know what's happening to your data, all you need to know is what's happening on your computer, which means you need to see the source. That's a cause I agree with 100%. I don't understand why you also need to be able to give a copy to your friend.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago
It goes with a moral value that RMS and FSF have been very persistent about: strengthening the community and helping your neighbour. RMS even once gave a talk at one of 2600's HOPE conventions where he said that given a moral dilemma of having to give a copy of a proprietary program to a friend and violate the license versus not giving them a copy and sticking to the license, it would be best to go ahead and violate it. Of course, he later went on to explain that free software would serve to get rid of this moral dilemma and that it would be optimal to not use proprietary software at all. RMS' speeches always highlight the value of the community and the role free software plays in strengthening bonds. I believe he's right, as file sharing in general has become an invaluable part of daily life in the developed world.
- GeneralMayhem 13y ago
  Sure, but again, that has nothing whatsoever to do with the rhetoric of freedom. It dilutes the message, and it's needlessly antagonistic. It alienates people like me who don't think the model of getting paid for what you build is a bad thing. And of course, his scorched-earth, perfect-or-nothing style of morality doesn't help - open source should, even to RMS, be a lot better than Windows, but he never acknowledges it. When you have little enough public support to begin with, focusing on the things that separate you from potential allies isn't a good way to do business. Of course, I'm not anywhere near as successful or accomplished as RMS, and probably never will be, so maybe I shouldn't tell him how to do his job. Maybe he just doesn't give a shit if anything actually changes, so long as he stays pure, and if that's what he needs to sleep at night, then fine. But that doesn't make it look any less counterproductive from where I'm sitting.

chernevik 13y ago

I am constantly amazed by and grateful for free software. I write with vi, code in python, work with data in MySQL and Postgres, grapple with text with sed and awk and a host of utilities. I teach courses on MySQL, I think the Windows / closed approach has unnecessarily deadened the average user's ability to appreciate and explore and use their computers. Open source, as idea and software, is great. But. "When you use proprietary programs or SaaSS, first of all you do wrong to yourself, because it gives some entity unjust power over you. . . . It also wrongs others if you make a promise not to share." Yeah, why? Because RMS says so? There is NO possibility of a closed source usage that is "just"? Is there anything like an argument for this, outside of some Marxist-derivative account of the inevitability of economic structures? That closed source might be bad is possible -- that it is so bad that no reasonable person of good will can possibly hold some other opinion really isn't. Freedom is the right to make decisions, and some times bad decisions. Claiming authority to judge the bad, and thus invalid, decisions, really lays the foundations for some serious power moves. Maybe RMS thinks corporations and free contract and market forces are some kind of sham, and maybe he's right, but it isn't as if there isn't another point of view. Why do I have to sign up with a core ideology to be supportive of open source? Actually, why do I have to sign up with an ideology that sounds positively hostile to a lot of what I think and believe? The technical arguments for open source are tremendous. The ethical arguments for it aren't bad. But setting the whole debate in terms agreement with one man's morality is a non-starter for me. Now I can use and support open software without signing up for the whole ideology. And I do. But the two are so associated that I often feel my own integrity requires using some bandwidth expressing disagreement with large chunks of the "open source philosophy". That's a poor use of time, and it diffuses the best arguments. Insisting on open source as some moral imperative is poor philosphy, and poor rhetoric.

joe_the_user 13y ago
"Freedom is the right to make decisions, and some times bad decisions. Claiming authority to judge the bad, and thus invalid, decisions, really lays the foundations for some serious power moves." Uh, having the technical means to make unilateral decisions for someone else (often secretly) is what lays the basis for "serious power moves" as we've seen with the NSA. "Judging someone" is also known as "expressing your opinion". Stallman expressing his opinion hardly gives him the serious power that, say, NSA arrogates to itself by installing backdoors in people's computer, using secret laws to seize private keys from service providers and so-forth.

auggierose 13y ago

I respect RMS and his point of view. But I don't believe in any religion, not even the RMS variety.

b1daly 13y ago

I know I'm not unique in being bugged by RMS's ideas but I do feel the need to attempt to articulate why. There has been, in the rarified world of tech commenters, an increasing number of people claiming Stallman has been proven correct by recent events. This seem to converge around the rise of iOS propriety "walled garden" (and similar systems) and the Snowden leaks. I don't see it. The argument shouldn't be that systems have come to dominate that are closed.Stallman is making a moral argument, as such there need to be proportional harms being enabled by such closed systems. Potential harms are not the same as actual and his arguments seem to focus on those. In the mean time the world goes about its business and people are happily using all sorts of software. Along with free (as in beer) software like that of Google, and relatively secure systems like those of the big tech companies, many are also use various flavors of "libre" and open source software. An accounting of harms, potential or otherwise, needs to have benefits included, otherwise it remains an exercise in ideology. This nags at me as well in hysterical discussions of NSA spying, which sometimes strike me as a sophisticated form of chicken littleism. If one stubbornly sticks to an absolutist form of ideology for many years, eventually some of the predicted harms, or at least similar ones, might come to pass. But this didn't mean the ideology is correct. Without a more complete and balanced analysis it's hard to say. I feel similarly about the absolute conviction displayed by some that NSA spying is an absolute wrong. While it does seem bad In some ways, it is not a slam dunk in my view. I can see some value in spying if it substitutes for more violent methods of control, and if it does actually lessen crime/terrorism.

chestnut-tree 13y ago

I am fine with closed-source applications. For me, the most important thing is open file formats, protocols and codecs. Open formats, protocols and codecs should not be owned by any company. Most programs manipulate data in some way. Open formats let you switch from one program to another without losing your data. It opens up opportunities for paid, free or SaaS solutions and users can choose whatever suits them best. For most people, their concern is about their data: what happens if they stop using program x which manipulates their data in a proprietary file format. PDF is a good example of this - once a proprietary file format, it is now an open standard. There are dozens, if not hundreds of free and paid-for programs that let you create, edit, view or save PDF files. (Some of the Free Software viewers are better than Adobe's bloated Reader software.) Just imagine what the state of graphics programs might be if Photoshop PSD files or Illustrator ai files were open formats? Or if everyone used a common word-processing or spreadsheet format?

keithpeter 13y ago

Nice article to point students at: software has less 'valence' for them than, say, clothing (c.f. No Logo, Naomi Klien) and so we might get a discussion going. I'm surprised that noone has mentioned the recent restarting of the gNewSense project, version 3.0 is Debian Squeeze with blobs removed. I'm posting this using the live ISO from a USB stick with a USB wifi adaptor (Thinkpads have wifi cards that need closed firmware). Everything else works. The release announcement was posted on HN but only gathered 3 points...

EGreg 13y ago

RMS pretty much saying the same thing he always says, but this time in Wired.

hacknat 13y ago

>>If the users don’t control the program, the program controls the users. I hate that he says this. And, he says versions of this a lot. Of course there are times when he is right, but I think a lot of times he’s not. Most of us make trade-offs. I use Gmail, I know that it might not be the best product anymore, I am certainly aware that my private correspondence is being crawled by Google. Here’s the important thing, I don’t care. It’s not that I trust Google, I just don’t think that trust is something that I value from my email provider (others might, and they should seek their email service elsewhere). Why would you ever trust a company? Any why is it owed to you that you should get to live in a world where you can?