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Harmful things Less harmful alternatives <thing that is popular> <thing that is not> With a few exceptions. Though their advice to not use HTTP

Harmful things Less harmful alternatives <thing that is popular> <thing that is not> With a few exceptions. Though their advice to not use HTTP is pretty impressive (I never thought cat-v were capable of compromise!)

zorbo 13y ago
That, or Harmful things Less harmful alternatives <thing that is > <thing that is > <not Plan9 / OpenBSD > <Plan9 / OpenBSD > Most interesting thing which sheds some light on the list is: "At the moment a detailed rationale is not provided for most of this, so figuring out why some things are considered more or less harmful than others is left as an exercise for the reader. Here is a hint: complexity is the bane of all software, simplicity is the most important quality" I do have to say I agree with a large part of the Harmful list, but I recognize those things are not actually harmful but just personal preference.
- zdw 13y ago
  Given that many of OpenBSD decisisons turn out to either be the right ones or the de-facto best choices (sudo, openssh, pf, bounds checking string functions, 64 bit time, etc.), it's hard to argue with the general concept. (This applies to Plan 9, to a much lesser extent - concepts and people who worked on Plan 9 tend to disseminate, but there's less direct code sharing).
  - kazagistar 13y ago
    I suspect that is selective memory at work to some extent. You are first to arrive sometimes, and the rest of the time you can say "well, we just didn't have the manpower" or something.
monochr 13y ago
Harmful: GPL, LGPL, Apache Software License, MPL, CC. Less Harmful: ISC, MIT/X, BSD, CC0, public domain. Yes, giving users even a smidgen of freedom like the GPL does is harmful. Who could say the terrible things that would happen if we don't keep the peasants well whipped and in their place. People like him have gone on to be so circumpolitical in their defense of letting developer do anything they want that their licences have ended up recreating the huge inefficient Soviet design bureaus of the 1960's. Places where you had 5,000 people doing the work of 50. You needn't look further than the closed source juggernauts like google, apple and microsoft to see how inefficient and wasteful they are with the human capital at their disposal. Open source projects still manage to beat them much of the time with 1/1000th the personnel and virtually no funding.
- copergi 13y ago
  >Yes, giving users even a smidgen of freedom like the GPL does is harmful The point is that it does not give them enough freedom. Notice how "public domain" is in the less harmful category? And all the licenses in that category as more free than the GPL?
  - monochr 13y ago
    > Notice how "public domain" is in the less harmful category? And all the licenses in that category as more free than the GPL? That's a very odd definition of "free". Can you explain to me how my computing freedom is enhanced by using a binary that's licensed under the Free BSD licence without the source being released? Compared to a GPL binary where I must be supplied the code as an end user and can vet it to make sure the vendor has not put tracking software/other malicious code inside? I assume the silent downvotes mean "No".
    - LnxPrgr3 13y ago
      I can see why people like the GPL, but it definitely and intentionally restricts some freedoms (such as the ability to link to non-GPL code, or make proprietary changes) so it can guard others. It's a trade-off not everyone's happy with. Here's how I look at it: say a company takes some BSD-licensed code, extensively patches it, then releases it under a proprietary license. I haven't lost any rights from this—I can still use the original code without their changes. The difference is the company isn't legally forced to grant me the same rights to their modifications. They're also able to incorporate outside code that can't be legally re-licensed under the GPL—the GPL instead forces them to find or write an alternative. It's in that sense that the GPL is less free. Its supporters argue that's a good thing; its detractors argue it's a bad thing.
      - monochr 13y ago
        Which has nothing to do with what I asked about my freedoms as a user. Developers think that licences that let them charge for binaries, restrict resales and keep competitors out are wonderful. The same way that banks think that debtor prisons were a wonderful idea and billionaires want a flat fixed dollar tax rate is the solution to every problem. There isn't much surprise there. But for the majority of the people, who do not work in the one company releasing the binary, the GPL is infinitely freer than any of the anti-user licences he's listed as "less harmful". So let me ask again: From the point of view of a user how is the MIT or BSD licence freer than the GPL?
ronaldx 13y ago
In my opinion, this is the point of the list. It exists to illustrate things that are popular and causing unnecessary harm. There would be little point in listing harmful alternatives that were unpopular anyway. Having said that, it's a shame that there is no exposition. In many cases I would value some explanation of why the author takes this position.

zorbo 13y ago

That, or Harmful things Less harmful alternatives <thing that is > <thing that is > <not Plan9 / OpenBSD > <Plan9 / OpenBSD > Most interesting thing which sheds some light on the list is: "At the moment a detailed rationale is not provided for most of this, so figuring out why some things are considered more or less harmful than others is left as an exercise for the reader. Here is a hint: complexity is the bane of all software, simplicity is the most important quality" I do have to say I agree with a large part of the Harmful list, but I recognize those things are not actually harmful but just personal preference.

zdw 13y ago
Given that many of OpenBSD decisisons turn out to either be the right ones or the de-facto best choices (sudo, openssh, pf, bounds checking string functions, 64 bit time, etc.), it's hard to argue with the general concept. (This applies to Plan 9, to a much lesser extent - concepts and people who worked on Plan 9 tend to disseminate, but there's less direct code sharing).
- kazagistar 13y ago
  I suspect that is selective memory at work to some extent. You are first to arrive sometimes, and the rest of the time you can say "well, we just didn't have the manpower" or something.

monochr 13y ago

Harmful: GPL, LGPL, Apache Software License, MPL, CC. Less Harmful: ISC, MIT/X, BSD, CC0, public domain. Yes, giving users even a smidgen of freedom like the GPL does is harmful. Who could say the terrible things that would happen if we don't keep the peasants well whipped and in their place. People like him have gone on to be so circumpolitical in their defense of letting developer do anything they want that their licences have ended up recreating the huge inefficient Soviet design bureaus of the 1960's. Places where you had 5,000 people doing the work of 50. You needn't look further than the closed source juggernauts like google, apple and microsoft to see how inefficient and wasteful they are with the human capital at their disposal. Open source projects still manage to beat them much of the time with 1/1000th the personnel and virtually no funding.

copergi 13y ago
>Yes, giving users even a smidgen of freedom like the GPL does is harmful The point is that it does not give them enough freedom. Notice how "public domain" is in the less harmful category? And all the licenses in that category as more free than the GPL?
- monochr 13y ago
  > Notice how "public domain" is in the less harmful category? And all the licenses in that category as more free than the GPL? That's a very odd definition of "free". Can you explain to me how my computing freedom is enhanced by using a binary that's licensed under the Free BSD licence without the source being released? Compared to a GPL binary where I must be supplied the code as an end user and can vet it to make sure the vendor has not put tracking software/other malicious code inside? I assume the silent downvotes mean "No".
  - LnxPrgr3 13y ago
    I can see why people like the GPL, but it definitely and intentionally restricts some freedoms (such as the ability to link to non-GPL code, or make proprietary changes) so it can guard others. It's a trade-off not everyone's happy with. Here's how I look at it: say a company takes some BSD-licensed code, extensively patches it, then releases it under a proprietary license. I haven't lost any rights from this—I can still use the original code without their changes. The difference is the company isn't legally forced to grant me the same rights to their modifications. They're also able to incorporate outside code that can't be legally re-licensed under the GPL—the GPL instead forces them to find or write an alternative. It's in that sense that the GPL is less free. Its supporters argue that's a good thing; its detractors argue it's a bad thing.
    - monochr 13y ago
      Which has nothing to do with what I asked about my freedoms as a user. Developers think that licences that let them charge for binaries, restrict resales and keep competitors out are wonderful. The same way that banks think that debtor prisons were a wonderful idea and billionaires want a flat fixed dollar tax rate is the solution to every problem. There isn't much surprise there. But for the majority of the people, who do not work in the one company releasing the binary, the GPL is infinitely freer than any of the anti-user licences he's listed as "less harmful". So let me ask again: From the point of view of a user how is the MIT or BSD licence freer than the GPL?

ronaldx 13y ago

In my opinion, this is the point of the list. It exists to illustrate things that are popular and causing unnecessary harm. There would be little point in listing harmful alternatives that were unpopular anyway. Having said that, it's a shame that there is no exposition. In many cases I would value some explanation of why the author takes this position.