5 ms·

I'm still quite convinced by the idea of software freedom, as explained in Stallman's earlier writings: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.

by codeflo 13y ago

I'm still quite convinced by the idea of software freedom, as explained in Stallman's earlier writings: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html Having said that, I find Stallman's war rhetoric increasingly disturbing: > The only code that helps us and not our adversaries is copylefted code. Free software released under a pushover license is available for us to use, but available to our adversaries just as well. This is the language of war propaganda, and shouldn't have any place in rational discussions. > If that enables GCC to "win", the victory would be hollow, because it would not be a victory for what really matters: users' freedom. All while endorsing the Affero GPL, a license that doesn't even allow users full control over their own servers. Maybe if someone is that convinced of a cause, the ends seem to justify every means. I'm not sure what's going on at the FSF, but it seems that they've lost sight of some of their original principles.

bjourne 13y ago
Isn't it you who are being irrational? That closed source software is the adversary of free software has been the fsf's position for ages. I see no war propaganda and "adversary" is not a synonym to "enemy."
- stephenr 13y ago
  Software doesn't have adversaries - people do. Open source and commercial and "free" software are no more adversaries than vanilla and chocolate ice cream are adversaries. As Steve jobs pointed out in (I believe) the late 90s - "Microsoft doesn't have to lose for us to win". Software is binary, the culture and mindset around it shouldn't be.
  - mjn 13y ago
    RMS certainly agrees with the first part of your comment: he doesn't in any way argue that the software is an adversary of other kinds of software. Rather, he argues that the makers of proprietary software are acting adversarially towards users, by attempting to limit users' control over their own computing platforms. Since the FSF's purpose is to promote user freedom, those proprietary software makers are therefore also in an adversarial relationship with the FSF's mission.
- prawks 13y ago
  "Adversary" might not technically be a synonym to "enemy", but in modern-day, common, spoken language, they are both thought of as very militaristic terms.
NAFV_P 13y ago
> All while endorsing the Affero GPL, a license that doesn't even allow users full control over their own servers. Thanks for mentioning the Affero version, I'd never come across it before. In what manner does this licence affect the users' control?
- codeflo 13y ago
  The FSF's FAQ on the Affero GPL explains it best: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html Quote: If some program on this server is released under the GNU Affero GPL, the server is required to offer the users the corresponding source of that program.
  - belorn 13y ago
    Please do not leave out context: if you run the program on a server and let other users communicate with it there, your server must also allow them to download the source code If you do not let other users communicate with the program, you do not need to do anything. For the AGPL to go into effect, you first have to make the active choice in making your computer and program public accessible for others.
  - NAFV_P 13y ago
    Thanks for replying, but it seems to me that under AGPL you relinquish full control of the distribution of the source, which is different than having partial control of the operation of your own server. I'm not disagreeing with you as of this moment as I don't think I have an innate understanding of the issue. May I draw your attention to a quote from the webpage in question: "If some program on this server is released under the GNU Affero GPL, the server is required to offer the users the corresponding source of that program. That is good, but having this source code does not give them control over the computing done on that server. It also does not tell them what other software may be running on that server, examining or changing their data in other ways."
    - codeflo 13y ago
      I didn't mean that the AGPL gives any specific person control of your server. What I meant is that you're forced (by the license) to configure your server in such a way that you "prominently" (exact word from the license) offer a way to download the source. In essence, the way I understand it: Say you're running your homepage on "GNUpache", a hypothetical AGPL Apache clone. Then you must have a "download source" button somewhere on your homepage. (This button might point to the official distribution if the version you're running is entirely unpatched and only uses standard plugins. If you have any custom plugin, for example to integrate with your in-house authentication server, you must offer the code for that plugin as well.) You might disagree on whether that violates your freedoms. But note that previously (with the standard GPL, and also standard copyright law), you were not even required to advertise what kind of webserver you're running.
mjn 13y ago
I don't think it's much of a departure from original principles. The original impetus for the FSF was the "closing off" of some previously public code by MIT AI-lab spinoffs, who hired away developers and withdrew from the previously common practice of everyone sharing the code of the systems that were being run at the lab. That led to his views that: 1) if any software is used by users, its code should also be available to and modifiable by those same users; and 2) anyone who tries to keep users from getting access to the code of the systems they use (or uses legal means to keep them from modifying it when they do get access to it), is the users' adversary. If anything the Affero GPL fits the 1980s motivation better than the original GPL does, since Stallman has always had the view that users of multiuser systems, not only the sysops, should also have full source access. A user of a SaaS app is basically the modern-era version of a non-privileged user of a multiuser Unix system. I'm not sure why that use-case wasn't included in the original GPL, come to think of it. My guess is just that it wasn't in practice possible to do what Stallman objected to at a large scale, given technology of the day. If you developed a proprietary app based on GNU software, installed it as sysop, and then didn't want to share the source, your userbase would generally be limited to one site. In theory you could run something more like today's SaaS: a central Unix system where you sold accounts but never distributed the software. In that case Matlab could incorporate GPL'd components without releasing their code by installing Matlab only on in-house servers. They'd sell people shell accounts on mathworks.com, but would never let the software leave the building. In practice this wasn't done at large scale, and instead any widescale usage required distributing the code to sysops at other sites to install local copies (e.g. Matlab licensed its software to departmental and corporate Matlab servers), at which point the GPL would kick in if the software were built on GNU software. The Affero GPL in a sense formalizes that previous status quo, by saying that the GPL distribution requirements don't apply for in-house usage within one site, but do apply once you're making the software available to users outside the organization (even if "making available" is now via telnet or ssh or vnc or http rather than binary distribution). The law around proprietary software has also been moving in this direction, to consider hosted usage to invoke a distribution-like copyright requirement such as "public performance", even if no binary goes over the wire. For example, if I buy an NES game legally, but then I sell accounts where thousands of people can VNC in to my server and play it on an emulator, that is probably not legit, even though I am technically never distributing the ROM to them (it never leaves my servers). This isn't completely sorted out though.
marcosdumay 13y ago
> Having said that, I find Stallman's war rhetoric increasingly disturbing When a set of powerfull people vow to destroy one of your freedoms, you only have two options. And yes, this is disturbing.

by codeflo 13y ago

bjourne 13y ago

Isn't it you who are being irrational? That closed source software is the adversary of free software has been the fsf's position for ages. I see no war propaganda and "adversary" is not a synonym to "enemy."

stephenr 13y ago
Software doesn't have adversaries - people do. Open source and commercial and "free" software are no more adversaries than vanilla and chocolate ice cream are adversaries. As Steve jobs pointed out in (I believe) the late 90s - "Microsoft doesn't have to lose for us to win". Software is binary, the culture and mindset around it shouldn't be.
- mjn 13y ago
  RMS certainly agrees with the first part of your comment: he doesn't in any way argue that the software is an adversary of other kinds of software. Rather, he argues that the makers of proprietary software are acting adversarially towards users, by attempting to limit users' control over their own computing platforms. Since the FSF's purpose is to promote user freedom, those proprietary software makers are therefore also in an adversarial relationship with the FSF's mission.
prawks 13y ago
"Adversary" might not technically be a synonym to "enemy", but in modern-day, common, spoken language, they are both thought of as very militaristic terms.

NAFV_P 13y ago

> All while endorsing the Affero GPL, a license that doesn't even allow users full control over their own servers. Thanks for mentioning the Affero version, I'd never come across it before. In what manner does this licence affect the users' control?

codeflo 13y ago
The FSF's FAQ on the Affero GPL explains it best: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html Quote: If some program on this server is released under the GNU Affero GPL, the server is required to offer the users the corresponding source of that program.
- belorn 13y ago
  Please do not leave out context: if you run the program on a server and let other users communicate with it there, your server must also allow them to download the source code If you do not let other users communicate with the program, you do not need to do anything. For the AGPL to go into effect, you first have to make the active choice in making your computer and program public accessible for others.
- NAFV_P 13y ago
  Thanks for replying, but it seems to me that under AGPL you relinquish full control of the distribution of the source, which is different than having partial control of the operation of your own server. I'm not disagreeing with you as of this moment as I don't think I have an innate understanding of the issue. May I draw your attention to a quote from the webpage in question: "If some program on this server is released under the GNU Affero GPL, the server is required to offer the users the corresponding source of that program. That is good, but having this source code does not give them control over the computing done on that server. It also does not tell them what other software may be running on that server, examining or changing their data in other ways."
  - codeflo 13y ago
    I didn't mean that the AGPL gives any specific person control of your server. What I meant is that you're forced (by the license) to configure your server in such a way that you "prominently" (exact word from the license) offer a way to download the source. In essence, the way I understand it: Say you're running your homepage on "GNUpache", a hypothetical AGPL Apache clone. Then you must have a "download source" button somewhere on your homepage. (This button might point to the official distribution if the version you're running is entirely unpatched and only uses standard plugins. If you have any custom plugin, for example to integrate with your in-house authentication server, you must offer the code for that plugin as well.) You might disagree on whether that violates your freedoms. But note that previously (with the standard GPL, and also standard copyright law), you were not even required to advertise what kind of webserver you're running.

mjn 13y ago

I don't think it's much of a departure from original principles. The original impetus for the FSF was the "closing off" of some previously public code by MIT AI-lab spinoffs, who hired away developers and withdrew from the previously common practice of everyone sharing the code of the systems that were being run at the lab. That led to his views that: 1) if any software is used by users, its code should also be available to and modifiable by those same users; and 2) anyone who tries to keep users from getting access to the code of the systems they use (or uses legal means to keep them from modifying it when they do get access to it), is the users' adversary. If anything the Affero GPL fits the 1980s motivation better than the original GPL does, since Stallman has always had the view that users of multiuser systems, not only the sysops, should also have full source access. A user of a SaaS app is basically the modern-era version of a non-privileged user of a multiuser Unix system. I'm not sure why that use-case wasn't included in the original GPL, come to think of it. My guess is just that it wasn't in practice possible to do what Stallman objected to at a large scale, given technology of the day. If you developed a proprietary app based on GNU software, installed it as sysop, and then didn't want to share the source, your userbase would generally be limited to one site. In theory you could run something more like today's SaaS: a central Unix system where you sold accounts but never distributed the software. In that case Matlab could incorporate GPL'd components without releasing their code by installing Matlab only on in-house servers. They'd sell people shell accounts on mathworks.com, but would never let the software leave the building. In practice this wasn't done at large scale, and instead any widescale usage required distributing the code to sysops at other sites to install local copies (e.g. Matlab licensed its software to departmental and corporate Matlab servers), at which point the GPL would kick in if the software were built on GNU software. The Affero GPL in a sense formalizes that previous status quo, by saying that the GPL distribution requirements don't apply for in-house usage within one site, but do apply once you're making the software available to users outside the organization (even if "making available" is now via telnet or ssh or vnc or http rather than binary distribution). The law around proprietary software has also been moving in this direction, to consider hosted usage to invoke a distribution-like copyright requirement such as "public performance", even if no binary goes over the wire. For example, if I buy an NES game legally, but then I sell accounts where thousands of people can VNC in to my server and play it on an emulator, that is probably not legit, even though I am technically never distributing the ROM to them (it never leaves my servers). This isn't completely sorted out though.

marcosdumay 13y ago

> Having said that, I find Stallman's war rhetoric increasingly disturbing When a set of powerfull people vow to destroy one of your freedoms, you only have two options. And yes, this is disturbing.