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A fundamental weakness in the free software argument is that it lacks a solid, broadly applicable proposal for remunerating the effort of software engineers. A

by abalone 13y ago

A fundamental weakness in the free software argument is that it lacks a solid, broadly applicable proposal for remunerating the effort of software engineers. A similar argument could be made for the abolition of copyright -- with the same weakness. It helps explain why the free software community has not yet delivered things like Google Docs, Github and AWS. This does not necessarily invalidate Stallman's argument about the benefits of free software. But without a clear mechanism for producing free software it's little more than a letter to santa claus. Here's a thought -- what about government support? My impression is that FSF tends to focus on volunteerism and heroics. But government support has produced a lot of the free and open core science in high tech (e.g. DARPA), and via procurement, even supported bringing it to market. Why not steer the FSF troops towards advocating direct government funding for free software projects and services like a public cloud?

ISL 13y ago
... has not yet delivered things like... Github http://gitlab.org/ http://gitlab.org/ Open source software alone can't spin up hardware. It makes sense to pay someone for providing a physical service. Github is getting paid already for developing what will someday influence a definitive open-source interface to git and collaboration. Photoshop is really nice software. The GIMP is too, and perpetually improving. Closed-source programs are sometimes the vanguard to show the world that a particular idea is important and useful. Any sufficiently useful closed-source program will be cloned into open source in today's environment. 15-20 years ago, the world had a plethora of closed-source options for a gui-based OS. These days, open-source offerings compete on near-equal footing. It's almost as easy as typing: apt-get install debian on any keyboard anywhere to get access to a functional GNU/Linux system. A lot of closed-source programmers earned a lot of money showing us what features of that system have mass appeal. Is a government-funded public cloud not beholden to the government which funds it?
- frozenport 13y ago
  I think you are overly optimistic, LibreOffice remains less functional than Office 97 and GIMP is a study in bad GUI design - not to mention the rest of the Creative Suite being missing in action. I was recently shocked to learn that I can't rotate text inside a table. Also LibreOffice at one point included the full source code of Thunderbird, some OSS is well written but I am not convinced that it is better at the architecture level when compared to Microsoft's offerings. After 15-20 years the OpenSource user-land remains confusingly fragmented. Multiple monitors are a pain and applications don't have the understanding of full-screen. Working with icons on the desktops was hard, so now we have launchers, and now we are doing away with the desktop all together - my theory being that drag-able icon interaction was too hard to implement. Distro's are fragmented by their philosophies on software rather then their GUI's - resulting in horrible user experiences. Why the hell does Linux mint come in so many flavors? Drivers remain a problem, I recently had to recompile modify the kernel because my elan mouse was being detected incorrectly. Ubuntu has made large leaps but I have noticed that their GUI burns power and shutters on systems that are about 5 years old. Also, remember when computers could hibernate? But, I use Gentoo for work, 'cause kcachegrind is good. I think OSS has delivered something unique to its users but it is whole different from a general purpose operating system like Windows. I think the comparison between Latex and Word is a good comparison between he OpenSource and propriety world. When people speak to highlight the progress of OSS I am tempted to ask: How many years do I have to wait? How many years do I have to wait? How many years do I have to wait? How many years do I have to wait? How many years do I have to wait? How many years do I have to wait? How many years do I have to wait?
  - phaemon 13y ago
    What an appalling Gish gallop. Well, as usual, the only thing to do is point out the first wrong thing. Conveniently, everything you said was wrong, so I can just pick the first clear statement you made: you can rotate text within a table.
    - frozenport 13y ago
      http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/3990/how-to-rotate-in-text-documents/ http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/3990/how-to-rotate-in... also https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48804 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48804 --edit, not sure why links to the bugzilla describing the issue are giving me downvotes... --edit 2 : I actually hit this bug when making a flyer, the bottom had little flaps with our groups email. It broke PowerPoint compatibility, and I had to reboot into Windows. --edit 3: You made laugh when you mentioned that "You can't invert the text quite so easily, you have to draw a rectangle with text in which can then be rotated any arbitrary degree." That sums up whats wrong with many user side facing programs. Too bad LibreOffice doesn't support pipes :-)
      - phaemon 13y ago
        Probably because both those links specifically say you can rotate text 90 and 270 degrees. You can't invert the text quite so easily, you have to draw a rectangle with text in which can then be rotated any arbitrary degree. Next time you trawl bug reports looking for anti-Linux material, try reading them more carefully.
        clarry 13y ago
        Did you just equate Linux with OSS?
        phaemon 13y ago
        No.
  - 13y ago
- abalone 13y ago
  > Any sufficiently useful closed-source program will be cloned into open source in today's environment. That is a parasitic and unsustainable model. Even if you could find enough volunteers to copy the work of every bit of successful commercial software, that original design and development work still needs to be funded. Other commenters have noted the quality situation of many of the cloner projects out there. Even cloning takes work and sustainable, quality work needs remuneration.
hkmurakami 13y ago
One reason would be that (particularly in light of some govt agendas revealed recently) that govt funding would inevitably steer and even corrupt the development of FOSS. There's even talk about how the NSA, who contributes to open cryptography standards, may have been deliberately placing vulnerabilities in said standards.
davidw 13y ago
The problem, defined more concretely, is how to fund the creation of what economists call a "public good": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good#The_free_rider_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good#The_free_rider_prob... Both copyright and government provisioning of the good are ways around the problem. Both are effective in some situations and of course have problems of their own. I think the government has a role to play in software development in terms of 'basic research' types of stuff. The US government is responsible for the creation of the Internet, and CERN money created the web. But to leave all software development in the hands of the government does not sound like a great solution to me, either, to put it mildly.
- jacquesm 13y ago
  I think the ransom model can help a lot in cases like this. Develop closed until the software is good enough and then negotiate a pay-day based on the future discounted value of the software, upon receiving the cash the software gets open-sourced. This could work for other creative efforts as well.
  - davidw 13y ago
    People tried this out years ago and it never really worked out very well, but perhaps with stuff like Kickstarter, things will change. Part of the problem with it is that it involves a lot of "make me think" on behalf of the acquirer, rather than simply "ok, I need this, the price seems ok, I'll buy it".
    - jacquesm 13y ago
      Blender?
- dllthomas 13y ago
  Not that I advocate it, but just for a slightly clearer picture of what that world would look like: a situation where lack of copying restrictions leads to the government being the only one paying for development of software for distribution is a very different one than where "all software development [is left] in the hands of the government" - people would still build on what's there, and may hire people to adapt those solutions to particular needs. And of course that's ignoring the fact that you'd probably have a comparable amount of volunteer FLOSS development going on in general.
pjmlp 13y ago
> A fundamental weakness in the free software argument is that it lacks a solid, broadly applicable proposal for remunerating the effort of software engineers. This is the main reason why after a period on my life, where I was a strong FOSS advocate, nowadays I don't care that much what license a software has. I was anyway already living from coding, before discovering the FSF back in 1994. It is easy to be a FOSS advocate when still living at the parent's home or as an university student. The problem starts when you want to make a living out of it. That is why in the end, most desktop software is closed source and the majority of FOSS friendly companies that sell software, have moved it behind a SaaS paywall. Still one can see how few people are willing to support FOSS developers, when looking at how much money they donate, or how quick someone comes up with a fork when money is asked for.
- gillianseed 13y ago
  >Still one can see how few people are willing to support FOSS developers, when looking at how much money they donate, or how quick someone comes up with a fork when money is asked for Do you have any examples of forks being made due to someone asking for donations? As for the problem of people getting paid to write open source software, I really don't think that the 'hiding the source code and selling binaries' method is the only viable option. I also don't think people are unwilling to support FOSS developers, I think it's mainly a problem of convenience (as in payment) and exposure. Things like Kickstarter helps a great deal here and I think this is a much untapped resource for funding FOSS development. One very successful venture was Openshot, an open source video editor (GPL licenced) which had a goal of $20.000 but which reached $45.000. Granted we aren't in a situation where it's possible to make a full-time career out of developing open source software through Kickstarter style donations, but I think it's not such a big step as one might think. I would happily pay a small sum each month for someone (or someone's) to work on FOSS software I use a lot, and I think a large number of people out there would do the same, atleast enough for someone to make a decent living out of it. Again I believe the key aspect is to make the payment convenient/safe and of course have a way for projects to gain exposure. Paying a small lump sum each month for continued free open source development of software you use/rely on for your work is in my book a much better long term solution than to pay a larger sum for the latest update of 'proprietary software X' where you are solely dependant on that provider and have to accept their conditions in terms of price/licencing not to mention the intrusive DRM mechanism which are a de facto part of proprietary software today. Compare that to the FOSS situation where, given that the source code is open (and due to copyleft any forks will also remain open), you will never be locked-in to one provider and their whims even if you are totally dependant on that specific piece of software. Anyway I'm not pretending that this is the 'perfect solution', but I dare say proprietary software certainly isn't (and I make a living off writing proprietary software and have for the past 8 years) and I think that a shift from relying on proprietary to instead relying on open source code is of great importance for many of the reasons RMS outlined. YMMV and all that.
hershel 13y ago
It's not enough to earn money. Technology markets are a winner takes all market, so you have to make enough money to be the winner.
roel_v 13y ago
Jeebus, I jumped the shark by upvoting you after reading only the first three paragraphs (internet attention span, I know), but the last two make me want to double-downvote you. You seriously want government to spend even more, and on funding some people's hobbies FFS? Why not give handouts to, let's say, cabinet makers, to make beautiful furniture for everybody who wants it but doesn't want to pay for it? Talking about cognitive dissonance...
amirmc 13y ago
> "It helps explain why the free software community has not yet delivered things like Google Docs, Github and AWS." I'd bet that each of those has benefitted hugely due to FOSS. I might even go so far as to say they wouldn't exit at all without it (though I don't know what underlies Google Docs). FOSS is great for things 'under the hood' but very few things in the mainstream are FOSS throughout. I find that interesting, as it's indicative of the different pressures in open-source vs closed-commercial environments (remuneration is one such issue).
betterunix 13y ago
"A fundamental weakness in the free software argument is that it lacks a solid, broadly applicable proposal for remunerating the effort of software engineers." Quick counterexample: the many thousands of programmers whose job is to adapt or maintain free software for the organizations that use it. That includes people working for small companies, large companies, the government (civilian and military), non-profits, political campaigns, etc., etc., etc. It is almost never the case that any software package meets all its intended users' needs, and someone needs to adapt the software when that happens. "without a clear mechanism for producing free software it's little more than a letter to santa claus" Clearly such a mechanism exists, as free software is very important and widely used. "My impression is that FSF tends to focus on volunteerism and heroics" Hm... https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
- abalone 13y ago
  That bit from GNU on charging whatever you want for distribution of free software is, frankly, a disingenuous argument. Ask any book or music publisher: you can't expect to profit much from distribution if you can always get the same thing for free next door. If you get anything, it pretty much amounts to a donation. I think we all know that here. Yes, you're right that there are organizations that subsidize free software development. But this is not a broadly applicable mechanism, in the commercial sector at least. Not every commercial company can pursue a leveraged approach. This is exactly why I suggested a government-funded direction. Free software is certainly widely used, but it pales in comparison to non-free software. Hence the previous poster's complaint about the lack of a competitive free Google Docs, AWS, etc.
  - eddiedunn 13y ago
    "Ask any book or music publisher: you can't expect to profit much from distribution if you can always get the same thing for free next door. If you get anything, it pretty much amounts to a donation." Lies. Using music as an example, look at Spotify (or Itunes or whatever) as an example vs. downloading mp3s for free. I'm aware this is anecdotal evidence, but I haven't downloaded any music for years due to Spotify being so convenient to use. Neither have any of the people I know. I strongly believe that given a superior distribution model, money will follow.
maxharris 13y ago
Why not steer the FSF troops towards advocating direct government funding for free software projects and services like a public cloud? "Government funds" come out of people's paychecks. What you're asking for is that everyone be forced to contribute to projects that you approve of, regardless of whether those people value those projects or not. I can't see a valid reason why someone that doesn't know about, need or want "free" software should be obligated to pay for it. What about their own needs, desires, goals and concerns? People need to be left free to keep the money they earn so that they can better their lives and pursue the things that matter to them. I really like sports cars - I like them a lot. I think they're inspiring to look at, fun to drive, and I could make the argument that there are a lot of people, ranging from children to the elderly, that feel the same way about them. Each of us would love to own, maintain, collect, restore and design new sport cars. Generally speaking, love of these things is connected with all sorts of other interests, including science, math and engineering, art (sculpting, photography, etc.) Just like software, albeit to a lesser extent, sports cars have have some arguable "public benefit" (i.e., a concrete benefit for a finite, delimited subset of individuals in society). Now imagine that we came up with some kind of government program would shower sports cars on anyone that applied for them. Why should my aunt - who barely drives - be forced to subsidize my sports car hobby, at the expense of her own desire to travel on a cruise ship to Alaska while she still can? (She is 79 years old.) At this point, maybe you'd say, "Well, software benefits everyone far more than cars do. After all, even people that don't use computers at all benefit from the improved efficiency (lower prices, increased quality, etc.) that computers bring to our economy. So all we're doing here is recouping costs from free riders." I don't have the space to do much more than to hint at the answer. This is by no means exhaustive, but one fundamental issue is this: When you say, "benefit," what do you mean? In my view, a thing is not ultimately beneficial to a person unless they come to see for themselves how it is a benefit to their lives, via their own independent judgement. Sure, identifying what's good for other people is fine. But then insisting that they agree with you if and when they do not actually agree subverts their independent judgement, which is the very thing required to produce and select the things needed to improve their own lives. No one should be compelled to eat a meal that wipes out their olfactory bulb and tastebuds.
- memset 13y ago
dllthomas 13y ago
"A fundamental weakness in the free software argument is that it lacks a solid, broadly applicable proposal for remunerating the effort of software engineers." I'm workin' on it...
duairc 13y ago
> It lacks a solid, broadly applicable proposal for remunerating the effort of software engineers. How about this: abolish capitalism. I mean, sure, I agree with you: under capitalism, where people are denied access to the necessities of life (food and shelter) unless they sell their labour to capitalists in exchange for money, it's difficult for people to find the time to fully commit to developing free software. The solution to this is to abolish the system that denies people access to the necessities of life. And this is not crazy: people already live in houses (and for the ones that don't, there are tonnes of empty houses that nobody is using). Food literally grows on trees (unlike money). There's no good reason why everybody couldn't automatically have a place to live and enough food to eat without having to pay rent to some capitalist. I wish more free software advocates understood the more radical implications of the free software argument (and as you say, the same goes for anti-copyright advocates) rather than pretending that it's ultimately compatible with capitalism. It isn't, and we shouldn't want it to be either.
- studentrob 13y ago
  a lot changes under a non-capitalist, socialist banner... a lot societies don't do well with big change.. there should be something more gradual to aim for
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    Basic Income?

by abalone 13y ago

ISL 13y ago

... has not yet delivered things like... Github http://gitlab.org/ http://gitlab.org/ Open source software alone can't spin up hardware. It makes sense to pay someone for providing a physical service. Github is getting paid already for developing what will someday influence a definitive open-source interface to git and collaboration. Photoshop is really nice software. The GIMP is too, and perpetually improving. Closed-source programs are sometimes the vanguard to show the world that a particular idea is important and useful. Any sufficiently useful closed-source program will be cloned into open source in today's environment. 15-20 years ago, the world had a plethora of closed-source options for a gui-based OS. These days, open-source offerings compete on near-equal footing. It's almost as easy as typing: apt-get install debian on any keyboard anywhere to get access to a functional GNU/Linux system. A lot of closed-source programmers earned a lot of money showing us what features of that system have mass appeal. Is a government-funded public cloud not beholden to the government which funds it?

frozenport 13y ago
I think you are overly optimistic, LibreOffice remains less functional than Office 97 and GIMP is a study in bad GUI design - not to mention the rest of the Creative Suite being missing in action. I was recently shocked to learn that I can't rotate text inside a table. Also LibreOffice at one point included the full source code of Thunderbird, some OSS is well written but I am not convinced that it is better at the architecture level when compared to Microsoft's offerings. After 15-20 years the OpenSource user-land remains confusingly fragmented. Multiple monitors are a pain and applications don't have the understanding of full-screen. Working with icons on the desktops was hard, so now we have launchers, and now we are doing away with the desktop all together - my theory being that drag-able icon interaction was too hard to implement. Distro's are fragmented by their philosophies on software rather then their GUI's - resulting in horrible user experiences. Why the hell does Linux mint come in so many flavors? Drivers remain a problem, I recently had to recompile modify the kernel because my elan mouse was being detected incorrectly. Ubuntu has made large leaps but I have noticed that their GUI burns power and shutters on systems that are about 5 years old. Also, remember when computers could hibernate? But, I use Gentoo for work, 'cause kcachegrind is good. I think OSS has delivered something unique to its users but it is whole different from a general purpose operating system like Windows. I think the comparison between Latex and Word is a good comparison between he OpenSource and propriety world. When people speak to highlight the progress of OSS I am tempted to ask: How many years do I have to wait? How many years do I have to wait? How many years do I have to wait? How many years do I have to wait? How many years do I have to wait? How many years do I have to wait? How many years do I have to wait?
- phaemon 13y ago
  What an appalling Gish gallop. Well, as usual, the only thing to do is point out the first wrong thing. Conveniently, everything you said was wrong, so I can just pick the first clear statement you made: you can rotate text within a table.
  - frozenport 13y ago
    http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/3990/how-to-rotate-in-text-documents/ http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/3990/how-to-rotate-in... also https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48804 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48804 --edit, not sure why links to the bugzilla describing the issue are giving me downvotes... --edit 2 : I actually hit this bug when making a flyer, the bottom had little flaps with our groups email. It broke PowerPoint compatibility, and I had to reboot into Windows. --edit 3: You made laugh when you mentioned that "You can't invert the text quite so easily, you have to draw a rectangle with text in which can then be rotated any arbitrary degree." That sums up whats wrong with many user side facing programs. Too bad LibreOffice doesn't support pipes :-)
    - phaemon 13y ago
      Probably because both those links specifically say you can rotate text 90 and 270 degrees. You can't invert the text quite so easily, you have to draw a rectangle with text in which can then be rotated any arbitrary degree. Next time you trawl bug reports looking for anti-Linux material, try reading them more carefully.
      - clarry 13y ago
        Did you just equate Linux with OSS?
        phaemon 13y ago
        No.
- 13y ago
abalone 13y ago
> Any sufficiently useful closed-source program will be cloned into open source in today's environment. That is a parasitic and unsustainable model. Even if you could find enough volunteers to copy the work of every bit of successful commercial software, that original design and development work still needs to be funded. Other commenters have noted the quality situation of many of the cloner projects out there. Even cloning takes work and sustainable, quality work needs remuneration.

hkmurakami 13y ago

One reason would be that (particularly in light of some govt agendas revealed recently) that govt funding would inevitably steer and even corrupt the development of FOSS. There's even talk about how the NSA, who contributes to open cryptography standards, may have been deliberately placing vulnerabilities in said standards.

davidw 13y ago

The problem, defined more concretely, is how to fund the creation of what economists call a "public good": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good#The_free_rider_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good#The_free_rider_prob... Both copyright and government provisioning of the good are ways around the problem. Both are effective in some situations and of course have problems of their own. I think the government has a role to play in software development in terms of 'basic research' types of stuff. The US government is responsible for the creation of the Internet, and CERN money created the web. But to leave all software development in the hands of the government does not sound like a great solution to me, either, to put it mildly.

jacquesm 13y ago
I think the ransom model can help a lot in cases like this. Develop closed until the software is good enough and then negotiate a pay-day based on the future discounted value of the software, upon receiving the cash the software gets open-sourced. This could work for other creative efforts as well.
- davidw 13y ago
  People tried this out years ago and it never really worked out very well, but perhaps with stuff like Kickstarter, things will change. Part of the problem with it is that it involves a lot of "make me think" on behalf of the acquirer, rather than simply "ok, I need this, the price seems ok, I'll buy it".
  - jacquesm 13y ago
    Blender?
dllthomas 13y ago
Not that I advocate it, but just for a slightly clearer picture of what that world would look like: a situation where lack of copying restrictions leads to the government being the only one paying for development of software for distribution is a very different one than where "all software development [is left] in the hands of the government" - people would still build on what's there, and may hire people to adapt those solutions to particular needs. And of course that's ignoring the fact that you'd probably have a comparable amount of volunteer FLOSS development going on in general.

pjmlp 13y ago

> A fundamental weakness in the free software argument is that it lacks a solid, broadly applicable proposal for remunerating the effort of software engineers. This is the main reason why after a period on my life, where I was a strong FOSS advocate, nowadays I don't care that much what license a software has. I was anyway already living from coding, before discovering the FSF back in 1994. It is easy to be a FOSS advocate when still living at the parent's home or as an university student. The problem starts when you want to make a living out of it. That is why in the end, most desktop software is closed source and the majority of FOSS friendly companies that sell software, have moved it behind a SaaS paywall. Still one can see how few people are willing to support FOSS developers, when looking at how much money they donate, or how quick someone comes up with a fork when money is asked for.

gillianseed 13y ago
>Still one can see how few people are willing to support FOSS developers, when looking at how much money they donate, or how quick someone comes up with a fork when money is asked for Do you have any examples of forks being made due to someone asking for donations? As for the problem of people getting paid to write open source software, I really don't think that the 'hiding the source code and selling binaries' method is the only viable option. I also don't think people are unwilling to support FOSS developers, I think it's mainly a problem of convenience (as in payment) and exposure. Things like Kickstarter helps a great deal here and I think this is a much untapped resource for funding FOSS development. One very successful venture was Openshot, an open source video editor (GPL licenced) which had a goal of $20.000 but which reached $45.000. Granted we aren't in a situation where it's possible to make a full-time career out of developing open source software through Kickstarter style donations, but I think it's not such a big step as one might think. I would happily pay a small sum each month for someone (or someone's) to work on FOSS software I use a lot, and I think a large number of people out there would do the same, atleast enough for someone to make a decent living out of it. Again I believe the key aspect is to make the payment convenient/safe and of course have a way for projects to gain exposure. Paying a small lump sum each month for continued free open source development of software you use/rely on for your work is in my book a much better long term solution than to pay a larger sum for the latest update of 'proprietary software X' where you are solely dependant on that provider and have to accept their conditions in terms of price/licencing not to mention the intrusive DRM mechanism which are a de facto part of proprietary software today. Compare that to the FOSS situation where, given that the source code is open (and due to copyleft any forks will also remain open), you will never be locked-in to one provider and their whims even if you are totally dependant on that specific piece of software. Anyway I'm not pretending that this is the 'perfect solution', but I dare say proprietary software certainly isn't (and I make a living off writing proprietary software and have for the past 8 years) and I think that a shift from relying on proprietary to instead relying on open source code is of great importance for many of the reasons RMS outlined. YMMV and all that.

hershel 13y ago

It's not enough to earn money. Technology markets are a winner takes all market, so you have to make enough money to be the winner.

roel_v 13y ago

Jeebus, I jumped the shark by upvoting you after reading only the first three paragraphs (internet attention span, I know), but the last two make me want to double-downvote you. You seriously want government to spend even more, and on funding some people's hobbies FFS? Why not give handouts to, let's say, cabinet makers, to make beautiful furniture for everybody who wants it but doesn't want to pay for it? Talking about cognitive dissonance...

amirmc 13y ago

> "It helps explain why the free software community has not yet delivered things like Google Docs, Github and AWS." I'd bet that each of those has benefitted hugely due to FOSS. I might even go so far as to say they wouldn't exit at all without it (though I don't know what underlies Google Docs). FOSS is great for things 'under the hood' but very few things in the mainstream are FOSS throughout. I find that interesting, as it's indicative of the different pressures in open-source vs closed-commercial environments (remuneration is one such issue).

betterunix 13y ago

"A fundamental weakness in the free software argument is that it lacks a solid, broadly applicable proposal for remunerating the effort of software engineers." Quick counterexample: the many thousands of programmers whose job is to adapt or maintain free software for the organizations that use it. That includes people working for small companies, large companies, the government (civilian and military), non-profits, political campaigns, etc., etc., etc. It is almost never the case that any software package meets all its intended users' needs, and someone needs to adapt the software when that happens. "without a clear mechanism for producing free software it's little more than a letter to santa claus" Clearly such a mechanism exists, as free software is very important and widely used. "My impression is that FSF tends to focus on volunteerism and heroics" Hm... https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

abalone 13y ago
That bit from GNU on charging whatever you want for distribution of free software is, frankly, a disingenuous argument. Ask any book or music publisher: you can't expect to profit much from distribution if you can always get the same thing for free next door. If you get anything, it pretty much amounts to a donation. I think we all know that here. Yes, you're right that there are organizations that subsidize free software development. But this is not a broadly applicable mechanism, in the commercial sector at least. Not every commercial company can pursue a leveraged approach. This is exactly why I suggested a government-funded direction. Free software is certainly widely used, but it pales in comparison to non-free software. Hence the previous poster's complaint about the lack of a competitive free Google Docs, AWS, etc.
- eddiedunn 13y ago
  "Ask any book or music publisher: you can't expect to profit much from distribution if you can always get the same thing for free next door. If you get anything, it pretty much amounts to a donation." Lies. Using music as an example, look at Spotify (or Itunes or whatever) as an example vs. downloading mp3s for free. I'm aware this is anecdotal evidence, but I haven't downloaded any music for years due to Spotify being so convenient to use. Neither have any of the people I know. I strongly believe that given a superior distribution model, money will follow.

maxharris 13y ago

Why not steer the FSF troops towards advocating direct government funding for free software projects and services like a public cloud? "Government funds" come out of people's paychecks. What you're asking for is that everyone be forced to contribute to projects that you approve of, regardless of whether those people value those projects or not. I can't see a valid reason why someone that doesn't know about, need or want "free" software should be obligated to pay for it. What about their own needs, desires, goals and concerns? People need to be left free to keep the money they earn so that they can better their lives and pursue the things that matter to them. I really like sports cars - I like them a lot. I think they're inspiring to look at, fun to drive, and I could make the argument that there are a lot of people, ranging from children to the elderly, that feel the same way about them. Each of us would love to own, maintain, collect, restore and design new sport cars. Generally speaking, love of these things is connected with all sorts of other interests, including science, math and engineering, art (sculpting, photography, etc.) Just like software, albeit to a lesser extent, sports cars have have some arguable "public benefit" (i.e., a concrete benefit for a finite, delimited subset of individuals in society). Now imagine that we came up with some kind of government program would shower sports cars on anyone that applied for them. Why should my aunt - who barely drives - be forced to subsidize my sports car hobby, at the expense of her own desire to travel on a cruise ship to Alaska while she still can? (She is 79 years old.) At this point, maybe you'd say, "Well, software benefits everyone far more than cars do. After all, even people that don't use computers at all benefit from the improved efficiency (lower prices, increased quality, etc.) that computers bring to our economy. So all we're doing here is recouping costs from free riders." I don't have the space to do much more than to hint at the answer. This is by no means exhaustive, but one fundamental issue is this: When you say, "benefit," what do you mean? In my view, a thing is not ultimately beneficial to a person unless they come to see for themselves how it is a benefit to their lives, via their own independent judgement. Sure, identifying what's good for other people is fine. But then insisting that they agree with you if and when they do not actually agree subverts their independent judgement, which is the very thing required to produce and select the things needed to improve their own lives. No one should be compelled to eat a meal that wipes out their olfactory bulb and tastebuds.

memset 13y ago

dllthomas 13y ago

"A fundamental weakness in the free software argument is that it lacks a solid, broadly applicable proposal for remunerating the effort of software engineers." I'm workin' on it...

duairc 13y ago

> It lacks a solid, broadly applicable proposal for remunerating the effort of software engineers. How about this: abolish capitalism. I mean, sure, I agree with you: under capitalism, where people are denied access to the necessities of life (food and shelter) unless they sell their labour to capitalists in exchange for money, it's difficult for people to find the time to fully commit to developing free software. The solution to this is to abolish the system that denies people access to the necessities of life. And this is not crazy: people already live in houses (and for the ones that don't, there are tonnes of empty houses that nobody is using). Food literally grows on trees (unlike money). There's no good reason why everybody couldn't automatically have a place to live and enough food to eat without having to pay rent to some capitalist. I wish more free software advocates understood the more radical implications of the free software argument (and as you say, the same goes for anti-copyright advocates) rather than pretending that it's ultimately compatible with capitalism. It isn't, and we shouldn't want it to be either.

studentrob 13y ago
a lot changes under a non-capitalist, socialist banner... a lot societies don't do well with big change.. there should be something more gradual to aim for
- dllthomas 13y ago
  Basic Income?