10 ms·

When I finally realized that the FSF is really about being a social movement and that creating useful software is a non-primary goal (or maybe even a non-goal),

by rwg 13y ago

When I finally realized that the FSF is really about being a social movement and that creating useful software is a non-primary goal (or maybe even a non-goal), my level of annoyance with RMS greatly decreased. Of course, along with that, my level of give-a-shit about the FSF and the GNU project decreased proportionally. Stallman wants you to use Free software because it's free-as-in-ideology, not because it necessarily works well or does what you want.

tcdent 13y ago
You've got it exactly right, but I don't see why that would turn you off of the movement, or at least keep it in mind as you develop and use software.
pantalaimon 13y ago
It's also a social movement that cares about what is the epitome of a first-world-problem.
- jimktrains2 13y ago
  Not necessarily. If a 3rd world farmer is hamstrung by licenses on any tools they have (and seeds they grow), that could prevent them from making those tools better, or crossbreeding those seeds. Same with educational software and material. Just because the focus is mainly on software, which is admittedly a 1st world problem, doesn't mean the ideals can't apply to the 3rd world as well.
  - chc 13y ago
    Third-world farmers won't be hamstrung by licenses because the third world does not care about licenses.
    - e12e 13y ago
      Only until a first-world company has a third world militia torch his fields for non-compliance.
  - yarou 13y ago
    Exactly. You can extend it to pharma drugs as well, which potentially could save millions of lives. I respect rms' work philosophically, and he needs to take a hard line because his detractors are so entrenched in the power structures of the world.
  - hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
    The 3rd world uses software too, you know...
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  Not at all when you realize that the developed and a large part of the developing world is absolutely dominated by computing and software. We're heading towards a completely digital society of ubiquitous computing in every conceivable part of our lives, and there is no denying this. Whoever controls our software, controls our world. Free software isn't a first world problem, it's a gigantic and urgent issue. It's only a shame that so many people don't realize this. Open source works for a lot of cases (I wholly think BSD licensing is just fine for Clang/LLVM and disagree with RMS on this one), but it's just a pragmatic element. Merely a part of free software. Something being open source doesn't imply any particular redistribution rights and ethical guidelines by itself.
- jfb 13y ago
  I would argue instead that it is a movement that is making a strong ethical claim.
- 3am 13y ago
  Look, I don't carry water for FSF or Stallman, but it's easy to make that statement in the context in the world they helped create. You can't imagine how much OS licensing used to cost, which would definitely be an impediment to non first-world populations (from an infrastructure, education, and economic point of view to the extent they can be separated) edit: to expound, the world they helped create is one where there is a durable, vibrant, and mainstream OSS culture where anyone with a halfway decent internet connection can download the source code & compilation tools for a state of the art OS. Radicals become irrelevant when they win.
  - gress 13y ago
    It's not obvious at all that the GPL had anything to do with causing OS licensing fees to collapse. There are numerous high quality open source operating systems that are not based on the GPL, and the general reduction in price of commercial OSs is a function if competition between corporations.
- belorn 13y ago
  I think the street children in Bangalore would disagree.[1] People set up computer centers to help the poorest of the poor. Its a place where they can learn and express themselves. Try set up such place and then pay for the OS, the text editor, the programming language, the painting program, the video editing, and so on. Compare that to finding some old used hardware being unused, and simply start helping the community immediately. [1] If you want to hear more, I suggest one of the many talks from Eben Moglen. For a transcript of one, see https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/09NTC_plenary:_Eben_Moglen https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/09NTC_plenary:_Eben_Moglen but its a bit short on details.
jfb 13y ago
FSF is deontological and the "open source" movement, consequentialist. My personal ethics lean former, but I just can't quit my unethical Macintosh.
jimktrains2 13y ago
> Stallman wants you to use Free software because it's free-as-in-ideology, not because it necessarily works well or does what you want. Though, the point is, you can make free software work the way you want or work better. You're _allowed_ to. That isn't necessarily the case with other software; that is the point of free software.
- fleitz 13y ago
  If this were true than clang would be considered free software by RMS... There is more to RMS's version of 'freedom' than just being able to modify the code, the AGPL is a great example of this.
  - drcube 13y ago
    Clang IS free software, and RMS agrees. The difference is that GCC discourages proprietary extensions and subsequent lockdown.
    - fleitz 13y ago
      > I would guess they describe their work as "open source" and do not talk about freedom. Actually he doesn't....he considers Clang/LLVM to be open source and not free, Clang/LLVM does not restrict users from developing their own extensions and licensing them as they see fit which ironically makes the software not free (according to the RMS ideological software freedom purity test).
      - jamesaguilar 13y ago
        Nope. The NCSA license is considered a free software license and is GPL compatible according to the FSF. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
        fleitz 13y ago
        That's fucking great, my uncle bob thinks it is too, but we're talking about RMS not the FSF.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> When I finally realized that the FSF is really about being a social movement and that creating useful software is a non-primary goal (or maybe even a non-goal) I think that, to a large extent, creating useful software, inasmuch as it is a pursuit of the FSF, isn't an independent goal so much as a mechanism for acheiving the goal of obstructing the development and spread of non-Free software.
fleitz 13y ago
free-as-in-ideology is brilliant, it so succinctly captures my feelings on RMS.
- stock_toaster 13y ago
  I think "free" is too much of a loaded term. "libre" seems to work a bit better.
smrtinsert 13y ago
I think you've completely missed the point of free software.
sepeth 13y ago
"Stallman wants you to use Free software because it's free-as-in-ideology, not because it necessarily works well or does what you want." And I think, that's a better position to be in; I mean, freedom is more important than to have good softwares.
- gress 13y ago
  Execept it's not even that. It's a narrow definition of freedom. Free as in socialism vs free as in capitalism.
  - sepeth 13y ago
    I believe, it is broader than you think: we’re always telling children that they have to learn to share, to be considerate of each other’s needs, to help each other; then we go off into the real world where we assume that everyone is naturally selfish and competitive. But an anarchist would point out: in fact, what we say to our children is right. Pretty much every great worthwhile achievement in human history, every discovery or accomplishment that’s improved our lives, has been based on cooperation and mutual aid; even now, most of us spend more of our money on our friends and families than on ourselves; while likely as not there will always be competitive people in the world, there’s no reason why society has to be based on encouraging such behavior, let alone making people compete over the basic necessities of life. That only serves the interests of people in power, who want us to live in fear of one another. That’s why anarchists call for a society based not only on free association but mutual aid. http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-may-surprise-you http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you...
    - gress 13y ago
      I totally believe in cooperation and mutual aid. I believe it's critical for that to be based on trust and individual choice, or it is meaningless. This is why I don't like RMS's attempt to force it on us.
      - 13y ago
snowwrestler 13y ago
I'm no expert, but this is not how I see RMS's point of view. I think he does care how well stuff works and whether it does what we want--he just takes a very long-term view of that goal. For example, let's say an ok V1.0 piece of open-source software is released under the BSD license. A startup takes the source, modifies it to create an awesome product, and releases that as a closed-source product. Everyone loves it and adoption goes through the roof. The company gets hugely successful and is bought by Big Tech Corp Inc....who really just wants the talent. They EOL the great product. Because it is closed source, the best that customers can do now is to reach back to original mediocre BSD'd code and try to replicate the development that went into the awesome product. BUT--go back to the beginning. If the mediocre product had been GPL'd, then the startup would have been obligated to release their changes as source code. So even though it was EOL'd by Big Tech Corp, the customer base has the up-to-date source code, and can carry on development and support as a community. Now, I'm not going to say that is a 100% accurate view of the world...the obvious counter-argument is that aggressive licenses like the GPL3 actually discourage business support of products. Thus a GPL3'd mediocre V1.0 would never have been picked up by the startup in the first place, and never would have been developed into an awesome product. I won't say I know which argument is correct, but I will say I can at least see where RMS is coming from.
- csmithuk 13y ago
  This happens a lot, especially in the SaaS sector. However your purchasing people or IT people (or yourself) need to consider this up front as due diligence. If you don't do it, you're a wally not a license martyr. Portable, open formats are more important than the mechanisms.
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
What you call ideology I like to think of as taking the long view. The primary goal is to create software that will remain useful. Time and time RMS has been proven right about the detrimental consequences of non-free software, but usually over the span of many, many years. Non-free software has a habit of working well and doing what you want right until it doesn't and then royally screws you. You can only be pragmatic about it (most of us are) if you are aware of the risks and consequences. Otherwise you're just being ignorant.
- rimantas 13y ago
  It is really very funny to read your and similar comments and to think why clang was created.
  - mwcampbell 13y ago
    I don't get it. Why do you think clang was created, and what does that have to do wwith the GP?
    - tonyarkles 13y ago
      To me, clang was created because gcc was working great for a lot of things, but wasn't working well for what some people wanted to do (and couldn't officially be made to do it without forking)
SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
I have to agree. I love free; what doesn't feel "free" to me is the GPL, since I can't use just about anything GPL in my job. My job involves creating non-free software. Given the GPL's goals, it's not a surprise at all that I can't use it. But it strikes me as ironic that RMS talks about "freedom" when really he's advocating restricting your freedom to use the software. I understand it's in pursuance of a "greater goal" of Freedom to modify everything, but the problem is that, in the large, free software sucks, and I don't really want to be responsible for making it good. Sure you can come up with a dozen really great free software packages (I'm using Firefox to post here, for one, and I make builds using gcc daily and gnu make). But I can come up with a thousand that suck -- and that includes the "best" packages in a number of different categories: Image editing, document editing, development environments (Eclipse has some nice bells and whistles, but that doesn't make it not suck), 3d editing... ALMOST everything with a GUI, browsers being a huge exception. [1] Those are just the categories I've tried and tried again to make Free software work for me, because I am attracted to the ideal of working with Free software. But every time, the paid/proprietary solution has been so much better than the free solution that I've defected and paid for the proprietary version. No, I'm not going to use free software to support an ideal. I'm going to pay for software that helps me get my work done faster and better. Because at the end of the day, I appreciate good tools, not ideals. There may come a day when I try to make my own "free" software project, but if I do, it will be because I really want to make a world class tool in that category, and I feel that the free model is the best for that tool. But I will continue to choose my tools based on what they allow me to do, not their source code license, and the proprietary tools I do use offer me more advantages despite being closed source than their open source equivalents. [1] Don't bother posting arguments about this or that free software package in these categories. Unless it's brand new and awesome, in which case I might like to try it out. Regardless, one example doesn't change my overall point, and I don't want the thread to devolve into "Gimp is great!" "No it sucks!" -- "Good enough" for one person is not always going to be good enough for another.
- undershirt 13y ago
  It's confusing if you think about it in terms of developer freedom, which the GPL isn't written for. It's about a user's freedom to run, study, modify, and distribute software however they want. It's this seed of freedom that prevents software from controlling the users. That's what the GPL protects. So your objection to the GPL is essentially that it doesn't grant you the freedom to take away these user rights.
bentcorner 13y ago
> When I finally realized that the FSF is really about being a social movement and that creating useful software is a non-primary goal (or maybe even a non-goal), my level of annoyance with RMS greatly decreased. Yes, that's pretty much it: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html

by rwg 13y ago

tcdent 13y ago

You've got it exactly right, but I don't see why that would turn you off of the movement, or at least keep it in mind as you develop and use software.

pantalaimon 13y ago

It's also a social movement that cares about what is the epitome of a first-world-problem.

jimktrains2 13y ago
Not necessarily. If a 3rd world farmer is hamstrung by licenses on any tools they have (and seeds they grow), that could prevent them from making those tools better, or crossbreeding those seeds. Same with educational software and material. Just because the focus is mainly on software, which is admittedly a 1st world problem, doesn't mean the ideals can't apply to the 3rd world as well.
- chc 13y ago
  Third-world farmers won't be hamstrung by licenses because the third world does not care about licenses.
  - e12e 13y ago
    Only until a first-world company has a third world militia torch his fields for non-compliance.
- yarou 13y ago
  Exactly. You can extend it to pharma drugs as well, which potentially could save millions of lives. I respect rms' work philosophically, and he needs to take a hard line because his detractors are so entrenched in the power structures of the world.
- hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
  The 3rd world uses software too, you know...
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Not at all when you realize that the developed and a large part of the developing world is absolutely dominated by computing and software. We're heading towards a completely digital society of ubiquitous computing in every conceivable part of our lives, and there is no denying this. Whoever controls our software, controls our world. Free software isn't a first world problem, it's a gigantic and urgent issue. It's only a shame that so many people don't realize this. Open source works for a lot of cases (I wholly think BSD licensing is just fine for Clang/LLVM and disagree with RMS on this one), but it's just a pragmatic element. Merely a part of free software. Something being open source doesn't imply any particular redistribution rights and ethical guidelines by itself.
jfb 13y ago
I would argue instead that it is a movement that is making a strong ethical claim.
3am 13y ago
Look, I don't carry water for FSF or Stallman, but it's easy to make that statement in the context in the world they helped create. You can't imagine how much OS licensing used to cost, which would definitely be an impediment to non first-world populations (from an infrastructure, education, and economic point of view to the extent they can be separated) edit: to expound, the world they helped create is one where there is a durable, vibrant, and mainstream OSS culture where anyone with a halfway decent internet connection can download the source code & compilation tools for a state of the art OS. Radicals become irrelevant when they win.
- gress 13y ago
  It's not obvious at all that the GPL had anything to do with causing OS licensing fees to collapse. There are numerous high quality open source operating systems that are not based on the GPL, and the general reduction in price of commercial OSs is a function if competition between corporations.
belorn 13y ago
I think the street children in Bangalore would disagree.[1] People set up computer centers to help the poorest of the poor. Its a place where they can learn and express themselves. Try set up such place and then pay for the OS, the text editor, the programming language, the painting program, the video editing, and so on. Compare that to finding some old used hardware being unused, and simply start helping the community immediately. [1] If you want to hear more, I suggest one of the many talks from Eben Moglen. For a transcript of one, see https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/09NTC_plenary:_Eben_Moglen https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/09NTC_plenary:_Eben_Moglen but its a bit short on details.

jfb 13y ago

FSF is deontological and the "open source" movement, consequentialist. My personal ethics lean former, but I just can't quit my unethical Macintosh.

jimktrains2 13y ago

> Stallman wants you to use Free software because it's free-as-in-ideology, not because it necessarily works well or does what you want. Though, the point is, you can make free software work the way you want or work better. You're _allowed_ to. That isn't necessarily the case with other software; that is the point of free software.

fleitz 13y ago
If this were true than clang would be considered free software by RMS... There is more to RMS's version of 'freedom' than just being able to modify the code, the AGPL is a great example of this.
- drcube 13y ago
  Clang IS free software, and RMS agrees. The difference is that GCC discourages proprietary extensions and subsequent lockdown.
  - fleitz 13y ago
    > I would guess they describe their work as "open source" and do not talk about freedom. Actually he doesn't....he considers Clang/LLVM to be open source and not free, Clang/LLVM does not restrict users from developing their own extensions and licensing them as they see fit which ironically makes the software not free (according to the RMS ideological software freedom purity test).
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      Nope. The NCSA license is considered a free software license and is GPL compatible according to the FSF. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
      - fleitz 13y ago
        That's fucking great, my uncle bob thinks it is too, but we're talking about RMS not the FSF.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> When I finally realized that the FSF is really about being a social movement and that creating useful software is a non-primary goal (or maybe even a non-goal) I think that, to a large extent, creating useful software, inasmuch as it is a pursuit of the FSF, isn't an independent goal so much as a mechanism for acheiving the goal of obstructing the development and spread of non-Free software.

fleitz 13y ago

free-as-in-ideology is brilliant, it so succinctly captures my feelings on RMS.

stock_toaster 13y ago
I think "free" is too much of a loaded term. "libre" seems to work a bit better.

smrtinsert 13y ago

I think you've completely missed the point of free software.

sepeth 13y ago

"Stallman wants you to use Free software because it's free-as-in-ideology, not because it necessarily works well or does what you want." And I think, that's a better position to be in; I mean, freedom is more important than to have good softwares.

gress 13y ago
Execept it's not even that. It's a narrow definition of freedom. Free as in socialism vs free as in capitalism.
- sepeth 13y ago
  I believe, it is broader than you think: we’re always telling children that they have to learn to share, to be considerate of each other’s needs, to help each other; then we go off into the real world where we assume that everyone is naturally selfish and competitive. But an anarchist would point out: in fact, what we say to our children is right. Pretty much every great worthwhile achievement in human history, every discovery or accomplishment that’s improved our lives, has been based on cooperation and mutual aid; even now, most of us spend more of our money on our friends and families than on ourselves; while likely as not there will always be competitive people in the world, there’s no reason why society has to be based on encouraging such behavior, let alone making people compete over the basic necessities of life. That only serves the interests of people in power, who want us to live in fear of one another. That’s why anarchists call for a society based not only on free association but mutual aid. http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-may-surprise-you http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you...
  - gress 13y ago
    I totally believe in cooperation and mutual aid. I believe it's critical for that to be based on trust and individual choice, or it is meaningless. This is why I don't like RMS's attempt to force it on us.
    - 13y ago

snowwrestler 13y ago

I'm no expert, but this is not how I see RMS's point of view. I think he does care how well stuff works and whether it does what we want--he just takes a very long-term view of that goal. For example, let's say an ok V1.0 piece of open-source software is released under the BSD license. A startup takes the source, modifies it to create an awesome product, and releases that as a closed-source product. Everyone loves it and adoption goes through the roof. The company gets hugely successful and is bought by Big Tech Corp Inc....who really just wants the talent. They EOL the great product. Because it is closed source, the best that customers can do now is to reach back to original mediocre BSD'd code and try to replicate the development that went into the awesome product. BUT--go back to the beginning. If the mediocre product had been GPL'd, then the startup would have been obligated to release their changes as source code. So even though it was EOL'd by Big Tech Corp, the customer base has the up-to-date source code, and can carry on development and support as a community. Now, I'm not going to say that is a 100% accurate view of the world...the obvious counter-argument is that aggressive licenses like the GPL3 actually discourage business support of products. Thus a GPL3'd mediocre V1.0 would never have been picked up by the startup in the first place, and never would have been developed into an awesome product. I won't say I know which argument is correct, but I will say I can at least see where RMS is coming from.

csmithuk 13y ago
This happens a lot, especially in the SaaS sector. However your purchasing people or IT people (or yourself) need to consider this up front as due diligence. If you don't do it, you're a wally not a license martyr. Portable, open formats are more important than the mechanisms.

bowlofpetunias 13y ago

What you call ideology I like to think of as taking the long view. The primary goal is to create software that will remain useful. Time and time RMS has been proven right about the detrimental consequences of non-free software, but usually over the span of many, many years. Non-free software has a habit of working well and doing what you want right until it doesn't and then royally screws you. You can only be pragmatic about it (most of us are) if you are aware of the risks and consequences. Otherwise you're just being ignorant.

rimantas 13y ago
It is really very funny to read your and similar comments and to think why clang was created.
- mwcampbell 13y ago
  I don't get it. Why do you think clang was created, and what does that have to do wwith the GP?
  - tonyarkles 13y ago
    To me, clang was created because gcc was working great for a lot of things, but wasn't working well for what some people wanted to do (and couldn't officially be made to do it without forking)

SomeCallMeTim 13y ago

I have to agree. I love free; what doesn't feel "free" to me is the GPL, since I can't use just about anything GPL in my job. My job involves creating non-free software. Given the GPL's goals, it's not a surprise at all that I can't use it. But it strikes me as ironic that RMS talks about "freedom" when really he's advocating restricting your freedom to use the software. I understand it's in pursuance of a "greater goal" of Freedom to modify everything, but the problem is that, in the large, free software sucks, and I don't really want to be responsible for making it good. Sure you can come up with a dozen really great free software packages (I'm using Firefox to post here, for one, and I make builds using gcc daily and gnu make). But I can come up with a thousand that suck -- and that includes the "best" packages in a number of different categories: Image editing, document editing, development environments (Eclipse has some nice bells and whistles, but that doesn't make it not suck), 3d editing... ALMOST everything with a GUI, browsers being a huge exception. [1] Those are just the categories I've tried and tried again to make Free software work for me, because I am attracted to the ideal of working with Free software. But every time, the paid/proprietary solution has been so much better than the free solution that I've defected and paid for the proprietary version. No, I'm not going to use free software to support an ideal. I'm going to pay for software that helps me get my work done faster and better. Because at the end of the day, I appreciate good tools, not ideals. There may come a day when I try to make my own "free" software project, but if I do, it will be because I really want to make a world class tool in that category, and I feel that the free model is the best for that tool. But I will continue to choose my tools based on what they allow me to do, not their source code license, and the proprietary tools I do use offer me more advantages despite being closed source than their open source equivalents. [1] Don't bother posting arguments about this or that free software package in these categories. Unless it's brand new and awesome, in which case I might like to try it out. Regardless, one example doesn't change my overall point, and I don't want the thread to devolve into "Gimp is great!" "No it sucks!" -- "Good enough" for one person is not always going to be good enough for another.

undershirt 13y ago
It's confusing if you think about it in terms of developer freedom, which the GPL isn't written for. It's about a user's freedom to run, study, modify, and distribute software however they want. It's this seed of freedom that prevents software from controlling the users. That's what the GPL protects. So your objection to the GPL is essentially that it doesn't grant you the freedom to take away these user rights.

bentcorner 13y ago

> When I finally realized that the FSF is really about being a social movement and that creating useful software is a non-primary goal (or maybe even a non-goal), my level of annoyance with RMS greatly decreased. Yes, that's pretty much it: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html