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Anyone with capital has SOME level of control, the point of capitalism is it allows the distribution of power to fluctuate. Compare to proprietary licensing whe

Anyone with capital has SOME level of control, the point of capitalism is it allows the distribution of power to fluctuate. Compare to proprietary licensing where the developer has near complete control and the users have nothing and will likely never have anything. The software isn't the capital, the license is the capital. Of course you don't control the software when you deliberately pay for a license that literally says you don't control the software.

foobarbazqux 13y ago
Yeah, it's more of an absolute split with proprietary software, except where vendors respond directly to customer needs and thus grant them indirect control. But, the amount of capital required to produce a binary of OS X or Windows is beyond anything you or I or the vast majority of users will obtain in the forseeable future, compared to a Debian binary which we could do today.
- spacelizard 13y ago
  I'm not sure what it is you're trying to say. I can produce a binary of OS X or Windows right now by ripping the iso and then hitting ctrl-C and crtl-V, but their license makes it illegal for me to hack it or to redistribute it. Are you talking about the cost to pay them for a source license? It's true that if they even sell one at all the cost is going to be astronomical. This isn't a real cost or an issue of ownership, it's a protectionist monopoly.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    Yes, for a (full, four freedoms) source license. I'm equating being able to compile source code into binaries with owning the means of production, where "owning" means "controlling" (which is what it usually means anyway).
    - spacelizard 13y ago
      I don't think that is a reasonable distinction. Anyone who has a copy to the source code can pretty easily compile it. The "means of production" in the analogy you're drawing is the compiler, and the source code is the instructions on how to operate the compiler. The big social problem that people are trying to tackle isn't access to compilers, it's access to those instructions. We've gotten to the point where most programs are written in common languages, and most common languages have free (as in freedom) compilers, interpreters, runtimes, etc. It's true that some people have definitely tried to write programs in their own languages with their own secret compilers just to make things even more difficult for potential copyright infringers, but thankfully that practice is not common because it has way more drawbacks than it does advantages.
      - foobarbazqux 13y ago
        Oh, I didn't mean "having a compiler" by "being able to compile source code into binaries". I meant having source code, having a compiler, and having a machine that will run the binaries you produce.

foobarbazqux 13y ago

Yeah, it's more of an absolute split with proprietary software, except where vendors respond directly to customer needs and thus grant them indirect control. But, the amount of capital required to produce a binary of OS X or Windows is beyond anything you or I or the vast majority of users will obtain in the forseeable future, compared to a Debian binary which we could do today.

spacelizard 13y ago
I'm not sure what it is you're trying to say. I can produce a binary of OS X or Windows right now by ripping the iso and then hitting ctrl-C and crtl-V, but their license makes it illegal for me to hack it or to redistribute it. Are you talking about the cost to pay them for a source license? It's true that if they even sell one at all the cost is going to be astronomical. This isn't a real cost or an issue of ownership, it's a protectionist monopoly.
- foobarbazqux 13y ago
  Yes, for a (full, four freedoms) source license. I'm equating being able to compile source code into binaries with owning the means of production, where "owning" means "controlling" (which is what it usually means anyway).
  - spacelizard 13y ago
    I don't think that is a reasonable distinction. Anyone who has a copy to the source code can pretty easily compile it. The "means of production" in the analogy you're drawing is the compiler, and the source code is the instructions on how to operate the compiler. The big social problem that people are trying to tackle isn't access to compilers, it's access to those instructions. We've gotten to the point where most programs are written in common languages, and most common languages have free (as in freedom) compilers, interpreters, runtimes, etc. It's true that some people have definitely tried to write programs in their own languages with their own secret compilers just to make things even more difficult for potential copyright infringers, but thankfully that practice is not common because it has way more drawbacks than it does advantages.
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      Oh, I didn't mean "having a compiler" by "being able to compile source code into binaries". I meant having source code, having a compiler, and having a machine that will run the binaries you produce.