5 ms·

But that's a very different point. Stallman sees proprietary software as a violation of fundamental freedoms, like slavery is a violation of fundamental freedom

• bdittmer 17y ago
  What about the fundamental freedom to do what you please with your own creation? Stallman never talks about that freedom.
  • coliveira 17y ago
    You touched on the biggest weakness of RMS point of view. If you write software, you have to fundamental right to make it free or not. If you are on the receiving end, you only have to agree with the terms. RMS turns the roles around, and wants to make the user the owner of everything.
    • andreyf 17y ago
      you have to fundamental right to make it free or not False. You do NOT have the right to restrict what I do with "your" ideas, once you've shared them with me - be it software, sonnet, or poem. The government may limit my fundamental freedom by enforcing a limited-time monopoly, but only in order to encourage you to work on your ideas. It is NOT your fundamental right to have such monopoly indefinitely.
      • dtf 17y ago
        Yet the maker of a software product can aid or hinder your ability to modify it by choosing to distribute as source or binary. That particular "right" requires no law. I often wonder what RMS would do if he had the power to enact a law mandating that all software be free software - as a form of "positive liberty". Judging by his writings, I get the feeling he'd do it.
      • cschwarm 17y ago
        Wrong. Copyright is about "works", not "ideas". My copyright of a work doesn't restrict your ability to copy the idea. In fact, this is what many Open Source projects do: they copy the idea or a proprietary software, but not the software (ie. the work) itself.
      • coliveira 17y ago
        The issue is not the sharing of ideas, but sharing of how the software was made. It is more like saying: "if I buy your food, you have to give me the recipe or I will sue you." There is a huge difference between using gcc and knowing how it was created, for example. Nobody is restricting you from creating a similar food or software (unless there is a patent, which is an entirely different issue). You have the right to create your version, and I have my right to sell only the product, not the process that made it.
    • iambvk 17y ago
      """If you are on the receiving end, you only have to agree with the terms.""" This is where I see a problem. Can somebody suppress my rights (to share, to sing, etc.), in the form of terms? Is a right is something that I can trade? I don't understand these issues much, just doubts :-(
      • moron4hire 17y ago
        What does the movie theater do to you when you enter BUT suppress your rights to sing/talk/shout/etc, on the terms that they will let you watch the movie? What does the military do to you BUT suppress your right to freely determine your life, on the terms that they will provide food, shelter, and training to you?
        • joe_the_user 17y ago
          Ah, but that's within a pretty limited domain. If the movie theater also restricted your right to write a negative review afterwards, say, it would be a bit dicey. Some contracts that suppress rights might be defensible BUT the point is that such contract are not apriori valid. Indeed, your the military example shows the need for limits; there's a reason that only the state can operate with the contract you describe. If a private organization could do such a thing, there would serious trouble on many fronts (private armies = bad things).
          • moron4hire 17y ago
            If a movie theater would want to restrict your rights to write a negative review, why would you attend that movie theater? If a contract is bad, you don't enter into it
      • cschwarm 17y ago
        > Can somebody suppress my rights (to share, to sing, etc.), in the form of terms? You're making some fundamental logical errors here. Your first premise is that you have these rights. But where's your rationale for that? The simple truth is that you only have these rights if the objects under consideration are yours. But you have no right to share my books. You have no right to share my house. You have no right to share my property. And you have no right to sing my song. Unless I give you my permission to do so, of course. So, your first premise is wrong. Your second premise is that it's suppression if you were not given all possible permissions. But you agreed to the terms with a free will. No one forced you to do that. No one pointed a gun to your head telling you what to do. In fact, you are free to do the same work I have done to author the work, in the first place. So, your second premise is also wrong. I don't know what your conclusion is but it's probably wrong, too, because your premises are.
  • andreyf 17y ago
    That freedom stops as soon as you share it with someone else. While you can do whatever you want with your creations, those you share it with can also do whatever they want with your creations. These fundamental freedoms can impede progress, and so the US constitution allows congress to enforce limited-time monopolies for authors on their intellectual creations. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause
    • davidw 17y ago
      It's a compromise intended to stimulate the provisioning of public goods, to borrow some terms from economics, by creating artificial scarcity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good#Possible_solutions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good#Possible_solutions
  • joe_the_user 17y ago
    Uh, I don't think Stalman or anyone else wants to keep people from writing programs on they own computer and then running them however they want to. What you're talking about is 'copyright', the right to give your creation to someone and restrict their ability to use said creation once they have it in their possession. That's more a little more complicated than ' to do what you please with your own creation'.
• axod 17y ago
  >> "Stallman sees proprietary software as a violation of fundamental freedoms, like slavery is a violation of fundamental freedoms." See this is the insane part. How can anyone believe that? No one forces you to use their proprietary software. If you don't like proprietary software, write your own equivalent software and use that. (Of course these days it's sometimes hard to get your own software onto devices, but rarely is it impossible).
  • iambvk 17y ago
    Sounds right, but until a friend of you sends a .doc or .ppt file as an attachment.
    • axod 17y ago
      That's a separate issue about file formats and whether they should be closed or open. Whole different argument. You can have closed proprietary programs and have completely open standard file formats.
      • iambvk 17y ago
        You just said, "No one forces you to use their proprietary software." and I gave an example. Of course, it is not forcing, you can stay not opening the attachment, suppress the curiosity. Yes, file formats /can/ be seen as a different issue, but its often the reason I end up using proprietary programs. One can have a closed program with a open file format, but not an open program with a proprietary file format, why? Doesn't it suggest an interesting link between proprietary programs and proprietary file formats? Do you still think they are really independent issues?
        • axod 17y ago
          >> "Of course, it is not forcing, you can stay not opening the attachment, suppress the curiosity." Exactly. So comparing it to slavery is ridiculous. You're right though, they are interlinked. Still, no one is forcing anyone to use proprietary software.
• astine 17y ago
  Judging an idea based on how happy those who believe it are seems like a dangerous heuristic. If you are judging the truth of a premise sure, but for an attitude to take?
• akeefer 17y ago
  Actually, it's more or less a summary pragmatism, which is a philosophy that grew out of the American civil war in response to fact that ideas people held strongly tended to lead to them murdering each other on a large scale. According to pragmatism, the truth of an idea is at least partially determined by the effects of that idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism