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Men of Zeal
The following was written by Slashdot reader Jonas Oberg.
Men Of Zealby Jonas Oberg
An increasing number of people today feel that the world ought to focus more on the freedom issues of free software rather than the technical or economical ones. Others feel that the issue of freedom scares people and that we should focus on practical benefits of free software, such as price or reliability.
The issue of freedom of software, or speech for that matter, does however scare some people at times. But mostly, the same people have little understanding of the foundation of our community, and often try to reap the benefits -- economically or technically -- from free software without understanding or caring about the freedom of others.
Although the community offers teaching of the nature and purpose of free software, it is often ignored and/or neglected, these newcomers still telling tales of piracy and intellectual property in the context of free software. They have been taught that sharing is wrong and that license fees feed the programmers who write the software. Having difficulty understanding the fundamental error in this reasoning is often the reason why these individuals fail to grasp even the basic concepts of free software.
By building walls around them and their software, they feel they protect their own rights to the software they have produced. But by hiring lawyers to create software licenses that imprison their users, they are themselves imprisoned by the same licenses.
The harm is not immediately visible. If they feel a need to build walls and their lawyers want to write new proprietary licenses, the community is not immediately hurt by this. We might have to work extra hard to reverse engineer their proprietary protocols and programs to implement free software equivalents or replacements, but history has repeatedly shown that cooperation makes this possible, even being obstructed by legal matters or having to avoid patents filed alongside the proprietary program.
The real problem comes if they later decide to jump on the steadily paced free software bandwagon by making a half hearted attempt to make their software workable on free software platforms. It's common that the community immediately cheers when corporation after corporation announces plans to port their software to a free platform, and even more so if or when they decide to release the source code for the software.
But we can not by default wholeheartedly embrace every company that attempts this. We have to look at each offering individually and decide for ourselves whether it would help to further our cause or hurt us in the long run. For every piece of software that is released under a non-free license to run on our free software platform, the temptation to sacrifice a part of our freedom in order to use this new software grows. This goes especially for software that includes the source code, but not the rights to use it freely, thus making the software as a whole non-free.
In time, some of the companies might be enlightened to change their business concepts and release their products as free software, but we should never have used their software or accepted it for use on our systems in the first place. By doing so, we sacrifice our own freedom for convenience. The alternative to using a non-free piece of software could be to use a program that is free software with limited capabilities compared to the non-free program.
It is important to understand the implications of sacrificing freedom and what implications it might cause to the ongoing development of free alternatives. If freedom is of the most importance -- and it should be at all times -- the choice is always quite clear. We have to work to teach those who join us that not only should they join us to maximize their profits, but also to contribute to the world and to help build a free software sharing community. Maximizing profits from free software is worthwhile and I encourage anyone with the opportunity to do so, but the money itself is not likely to stick around unless some of it is invested back into the community that made the profit possible in the first place.
"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evilminded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal and wellmeaning but without understanding." -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis
Chief Seattle of the Suquamish (??) once wrote an eloquent speech about an offer to buy a gew million acres of land. He wrote: "How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?" Code was once free -- in the literal and figurative sense -- and the idea that it could somewhow be owned was strange to our programmer forebears of old. It is almost prophetic that Chief Seattle's speech begins with: "The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land." And so it is that a chief in (Redmond) Washington feels that our code, whether the beauty of a particular construct in C or the clever entanglement of a script in Perl, is somehow ownable. How do we buy or sell the sky? How do we own code? KLL
All this talk of the freedom of free software, where free software is software licensed under BSD L, X11 L, Artistic L, Sendmail L, etc., and GPL. When the talking stops, one learns that the license they're promoting, the GPL, only gives the software freedom within the community of GPL users. (Kinda like the freedom those enslaved to an island have.) The software is not free to be used by those who won't use the GPL. If their community is based on Copyleft, why don't they talk about Copyleft, instead of about Free Software, which is a different thing (which even they will admit in the fine print).
My employer has specific problems he want to solve. I'm hired to solve the problems. I write free software as part of the solution. Everybody wins. My employers problems are solved, I'm getting paid, and more free software is produced.
I do not understand why this concept seems so hard to grasp, that some people claim that it cannot work, despite the fact that is *does* work. I *am* getting my salary. My employer *is* getting his problems solved. I *am* writting free software.
Maybe you think all programmers are creating products. Some are. They are a small minority. Far most programmers are employed in the internal infrastructure side of various commercial or non-commercial organizations. Our work is less visible than those who create shrink-wrap products, but it is no less important.
From the FSF link you posted:
But non-copylefted free software also exists.
Exactly which part of that statement is it you have trouble understanding?
Here is the relevant bit of the GPL for examination.
As you can see the FSF doesn't necessarily have any power over the users or the writers of software. Each group is free to use whatever version of the GPL that they want when the version number is not particularly specified.
The FSF does, however, retain the right to change the GPL as they see fit "to address new problems or concerns." Such is their stature in the Free Software community that were they to decide to change the GPL a good deal of code would almost immediately fall under their new version of the GPL. Users could continue to use their old versions of the software in question, and the KDE group would be welcome to maintain their own forks of all of the software that they have "borrowed" from, but new development on these projects would fall under the new version of the GPL.
Note, the FSF certainly does not have the power to force people to use their new version of the GPL, but they do control a heck of a lot of GPL software (the copyrights are in their name), and their opinion (like it or not) carries a lot of weight in the Free Software community. Many, if not all, of the GPL developers would probably go along with the switch.
If the Free Software Foundation decided tomorrow that Dynamic Linking was a serious enough hole that it absolutely needed to be filled, then the KDE group would be in a world of hurt, and they would have no one to blame but themselves. After all the FSF and the Debian group have been telling the KDE developers all along how they felt that the GPL should be interpretted, and the KDE group has simply thumbed their noses and resorted to name calling.
Whether the KDE group likes it or not the license certainly does matter. This article may write off the Gnome Foundation and the donation of the code in StarOffice, but it is a big deal, and it will give Gnome a serious boost. This boost could have been KDE's if it weren't for the licensing issues.
While I certaily agree that licensing matters, it is not always the most important consideration.
For example, in BSDs case, the reason that Linux is more popular than the various x86 BSDs is that Linux has been open about supporting weird hardware, and the BSDs weren't. Heck, they didn't even acknowledge that some people might want to use IDE CD-Rom drives until fairly recently.
Of course the license is still important, for example, Linux can "borrow" code from from FreeBSD, but FreeBSD can't borrow Linux code without adopting the GPL (because the GPL is "viral"). That works out as an advantage for Linux, but not nearly as big an advantage as the fact that Linus has been much more inclusive of hardware drivers.
As for Gnome, if you haven't used the newest Helix Gnome with Sawfish, then your opinions are hopelessly outdated. Gnome is no longer anything like RedHat's evil version that they shipped on the early 6.+ versions of their distro. Honestly, I was a long time KDE user, but HelixGnome + Sawfish is impressive. And the fact that their stuff is LGPLed is simply icing on the cake.
Another thing to consider is the fact that Gnome uses industry standard Corba, while KDE uses DCop/Kparts. That makes a big difference when you are an organization like Sun with a lot of Corba-ized software floating around.
We live in interesting times.
Although in this particular case I would tend to think that Debian and especially the FSF have the upper hand. After all, if you pay careful attention to the GPL it gives the FSF special rights to change the GPL and make the new license apply retroactively.
In other words, I would be wary of contradicting the FSF on this point. After all, they can change the wording of the license so that it is unambiguous and then millions of lines of existing GPL code will be unavailable to KDE, and many existing KDE apps with borrowed GPL code will be illegal to distribute.
Unfortunately the QT and KDE folks have a long history of being sloppy with their licensing, and they are unwilling and unable to change now. My personal guess is that this whole issue will turn into a train wreck.
Uhh you severely missed his point. Even though you have an account, you're no less anonymous than an AC. Perhaps if your username were "Harold Thompson from Houston, TX" you might have a case. As it stands, the difference in anonymity between you or me or an AC is pretty much zero.
I pretty much agree with you but can't resist arguing a little:
Nobody has yet come up with an explanation of why it is that "The Community" has never, once, come up with a major original piece of work.
That's true if you're thinking about user applications. Unix is playing catch-up there and is imitating commercial software. (WindowMaker/AfterStep dockapps are the only real source of originality I can think of.) But there have been a lot of innovative free development tools.
Look at the main characters of the Free Software movement. How many of them don't have more or less serious ego issues?
That depends how you define "characters". I don't get the impression that the developers of, say, Samba, Apache, KDE or WindowMaker are egomaniacs. But then you'll never see obsessive Slashdot coverage every time Andrew Tridgell or David Faure opens his mouth. Probably you mean the "main celebrities" -- although I think you're being unfair to Linus Torvalds.
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Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Yes, I am not entirely consistent in this. But it is mostly because I consider that Free Software and Open Source mean the same thing, and have worked that way from day one of the Open Source initiative.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Because that's not true. For example, I released my first free software, Electric Fence, around 1988. The principle in that program could have been patented if I'd wished, and is in fact mentioned as prior art in at least one patent, filed by ATT.
If you think we are slavish copiers, you're just plain wrong. Even though Linux, for example, had a published API to model, there are many improvements to the art in its source code.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
And of course there are non-economic proofs of the model's importance, too.
It's nice that people can make a living working on Open Source, but the existence of VA, Red Hat, and their ilk is not key to the existence of Open Source. I was making Open Source before they existed, I can go on making it after they are gone.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I don't think there would be much job security in working for a company that isn't making a profit.
Please go back and read what I wrote. I didn't say the company wasn't making a profit. I said that the Open Source developers were operating as a cost center. Most companies have profit centers, which make money, and cost centers, which provide essential services to the profit centers. If you can save $1 from continuing overhead in a cost center, it's as good for your company as making $1 in a profit center - that's $1 they would not have had otherwise, either way.
Nobody is forcing you to give away your code, unless you consider competition a form of forcing you.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Sir. I hate to throw water on your argument, but I am the primary author of the official definition of Open Source. The other authors were a bunch of Debian developers. When we wrote the thing, it was called the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Open Source was proposed about 6 months later. At the time we finished the DFSG, Richard Stallman approved of it. As far as I can tell, it's a definition of Free Software licensing.
Free Software as defined by the FSF before we came along with the DFSG and OSD also includes more than just the GPL, the other licenses you mention are free software too, although they are not necessarily compatible with each other.
This is a complicated area and I suggest a bit more study.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
What point is a healthy life of book-burning slavery?
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
what is voting but expressing an opinion? many roadblocks have been put up against voters in the past - owning land, gender, religion, education, etc. voting is just a way to get a person with the voter's interests in a position of power.
in other words voting is a way of communicating.
what is software? in many respects it too is a way to communicate. email, news, the web, chat, etc. all of these must remain *free* if all people are to be able to use them to communicate freely. and in order for that to happen the people need to be able to *see* the software.
there's also an issue of civility. all these grandiose concepts of freedom are great, but for what? a society where corporations tell us what is moral? the act of sharing with a friend is deemed immoral and illegal?
is that what real and serious freedom is working for? if it is then sign me up for the cheapened and goofy form of freedom.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
There are a few issues I have with this:
- what about the developers that wrote the original version that you added custom hacks to? They did 99.99% of the work, but you get all of the payment?
- Who will your custom changes be useful to? Your employer, and maybe their competitors, but no-one else. To me, that's a rather empty form of open-source. "Let's give something useless back to the community!"
- Can't you write the code, and then not release it as open-source? Then you don't risk your competitors learning anything from it. This is within the restrictions of the GPL too, since you're not distributing the code. Less risk is a benefit, so its to your advantage to not release the code.
- This one's personal: I don't like writing custom hacks. I want to write real software from the ground-up.
Maybe I'm a zealot, but I agree with that. All software should be free. I would never say, though, that all software must be free. Huge semantic difference, right?I too think it would be nice if all software was free. I think it's of higher importance for producers to be compensated for their work though. Hence, I don't think it's immoral for content creators to demand to get paid for their work. I do, however, think it's immoral for people to expect to get something for nothing. It's even worse to insinuate that those who demand to get paid for their work should be punished, which is exactly what RMS does. I personally think that those who demand something for nothing are far more deserving of punishment.
People will get paid for programming (or tutoring AI robots) in the foreseeable future, though.
Programming is expensive. Few people can do it well, and for those of us who can. it takes a long time and a lot of effort to produce something truly significant. Work for hire really only works for adding custom hacks to already existing code. See the points above. If you look at a typical project, like say Apache, I'd bet that far less than 10% of the useful features were added by people writing custom hacks. The important software is the non-custom software. In open source, the people who write that >90% of the code tend to go unpaid. That's the software that's useful to a much larger group of people, and it would be much more valuable for it to be opened. So far, there are very few business models that really work for this kind of software though. The most common model is to ammortize the cost over all of the users. In other words, charge a per-whatever license. That seems to be at odds with that nebulous "freedom" that some people want though, because in order to ammortize the costs, you need to require all users to pay their share. If you don't make it a requirement, most simply will not pay, and your costs won't be covered.
- I mentioned widget frosting. I don't want to write hardware drivers though.
- How is it a benefit to the service company if the software is free? Doesn't that just make things easier for their competitors? If they close the source, only they will be paid to make improvements. As an aside, I'm not interested in doing contract work. I like to concentrate on coding, not negotiating for new "gigs".
- Sounds like selling banner ads. That only works for extrememly high-traffic sites like Yahoo and popular search engines.
- I could also become adept at waiting tables. By why can't I get paid for writing code, which is what I'm good at, and which is useful to others?
What you seem to overlook is the fact that even if there were no financial incentive to developing free software, people would do it (for love of the art, boredom or whatever).What you seem to overlook is that I contribute to several open source projects. I love coding. I also need to eat and have shelter too, though. So I have a day job writing closed-source code, and then I contribute to open source projects at home, in my spare time, when I'm not too burnt-out from coding all day at work. Plus, I like to get away from the computer every now and then. All coding and no play makes Zag a dull boy...
There would be a heck of a lot more open source software if people could actually work on it full time. As it is, software developers have to have "day jobs" and can only work on open source part time.
Also, a lot of open source code isn't even written by professional developers, but instead by sysadmins and webmasters. I know I'm going to get flamed for saying this, but a lot of that code sucks. There are well know CS algorithms that aren't used, because a lot of the people writing the code simply don't know about them. I think the code would be a lot higher quality if there were more professional developers working on it full-time. As it is, very few people can work on open source full time, because there's no viable way to make a profit.
nobody is demanding your work for no compensation. I'd rather view it as requesting your help for a joint effort, the final product being the shared compensation.
RMS has stated many times that it is "immoral" to produce (or even use) non-"free" software. Many other open source zealots have stated that all software should be free. Many also have the belief that copyright is wrong, and the people should be able to distribute software as they please.
And having the final product be my compensation isn't quite enough. I can't tell my landlord "here's the rent for September: a generalized A* searcher in Java!". Much of the software I write is of no use to me, personally. I enjoy writing it, and I know it's useful to others.
I have no problem with writing free (as in speech) software, provided I can make a decent living. By decent, I mean on par with commercial software developers. I would think that most open source advocates would be interested in finding a way to make that possible. Maybe I'm the only one.
You're arguing that free software is bad because it's impossible, but reality is flaunting your objections, as reality tends to do.
Look at my email address and say that again. I never said free software was bad. I just think that people who advocate free software and open source should be interested in finding ways for developers to make a profit developing free software, because that would allow them to work on it full-time. As it is, developers can only work on it in their spare time as a hobby, and the vast majority of open source developers aren't even qualified to be commercial software developers. Combine all that, and you get less code, with lower qulity than you would get if there were professional developers working full-time on open source.
Incidently, having worked on a few open source projects, I have seen with my own eyes some of the most screwed up coding that could only have come from someone who was either drunk, or knew very little about coding in the first place. (I'm guessing most of these are caused by either sysadmins or webmasters) Of course, I've only been able to work on these projects in my spare time, so I can't fix every disgusting kludge I see...
I've asked this question so many times, and never once recieved a reasonable answer. Here I go again though:
How can developers of open source/free software get compensated for their work? Everyone right now seems to be either doing the work for free in their spare time, or is working for a company like Red Hat that hires developers only for PR reasons. There don't seem to be any good business models for open source (except perhaps widget frosting, but not all of us want to write hardware drivers).
I would love to be able to spend all day working on free software projects. I would also need to get paid though. And I think I should get paid just as much as people working on commercial software. You can't really sell "free" software, because "free as in speech" seems to require "free as in beer".
Okay, now I know someone is going to say "work for hire" (that's the closest I've ever recieved to a reasonable response to this query in the past). There's a problem though: software is expensive to produce. Suppose I spend a year developing some piece of software. I expect to get paid at least a year's salary for that work. If several hundred or thousand people will be using that software, that doesn't seem unreasonable, if they all pay for a bit. (ie: amortize the cost over the users.) Work for hire implies that a person or group will pay for it though. Where are they going to get that kind of money?
Name just about any other open source business model, and there's probably a big hole in it. Loss-leader: you're not making the company money so they may as well fire you. Support's even worse, because there's also a conflict of interest. etc...
Assuming there isn't any good way for free software developers to make money (I have to assume that, since no one has been able to show otherwise), why should developers create free software? RMS and Bruce say for "freedom". This is a pretty nebulous form of freedom though. How is your freedom violated if I write some code and don't give you the source? Would I be violating your freedom if I wrote down a neat idea for a program, and never got around to writing the code or publishing the idea? What if I draw a doodle that I never show anyone, but you would've liked it had you seen it? What if I take a dump, and don't let you watch?
To me, "open source" is a feature. The "freedom" it gives me isn't significantly different from the "freedom" obtained by getting a larger hard drive, or having a system that doesn't crash.
One last query: Who's more greedy, the person who demands to be paid for their work, or the person who demands the benefits of that work at no cost?
I don't get where you concept of moral worth is coming from.
You seem to start of saying that PGP is no better or worse than its commercial equivalents to the activists who use it. Thats an odd argument, given that it really has very few commercial competitors (I'm not aware of *any*). Even if it did, its *free* (beer), and well verified. It seems strange to claim that its of not more value to a human rights activist (and they do use it) than expensive and poorly verified (they usually are) commercial products.
Its similarly strange to say it has no more value than access to clean water: well obviously it has *less*, though I'd say both have *some*. I'd ask you what you think *does* have moral worth ?
I think that in the very long run, you are wrong about that. As people slowly turn their lesser freedoms and money over to the megacorps, it starts to have subtle effects on their overall lives. The same process that gets people to buy Windows 2000, is also what keeps them glued to the TV set in order to download the latest homogenized pseudo-culture update, instead of getting up and doing something or thinking for themselves.
Maybe having a population of half-asleep zombies isn't as sensational of a problem as juntas butchering children, but it's still pretty offensive to me.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
but doing nothing and having no free alternative such as GNU Linux BSD etc leaves us powerless to the whims of large greedy corporations.
Okay, I'm throwing away moderator points to reply, so listen up.
Freedom is not software any more than liberty is the piece of paper the US Constitution is written on. You and I have always had the freedom and liberty to create free software. There are no laws against it (patents not withstanding, but that's tangental). If GNU, Linux, BSD, et al never came about, guess what? Someone would come along and create them! That's exactly what Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and thousands of others did.
The freedom is in the creating, not the creation. To imply that simply using Linux instead of Windows will free you is utterly ridiculous. I already have free speech. I don't need Richard Stallman to give it to me any more than I need him to supply me with air. And there is nothing Microsoft can do to take away my free speech.
Many of you out there used Windows once upon a time, and now use Linux or BSD. Did you have to break any laws to switch? Did Microsoft come to your house and break your kneecaps? Did they attach your wages? Were you, in any way, fearful of what Microsoft might do to you in retaliation for your rebellion? Of course not! That's because you were already free.
I don't know where this myth is coming from, but we are not powerless against the whims of people wealthier than ourselves. As long as we are free, they can do nothing to us against our will. And the only thing that can take away our freedom is crime and government. As it stands today, not one corporation in the world can tell me what to do with my life, liberty or property.
And before you all jump up waving your arms, I fully understand copyright does not let you do whatever you want with your own copy of Windows. Actually, you do. You can do whatever you want with your own copy, including giving it away to your neighbor. You just can't do whatever you want with the information, since that is not owned by you. Copyrights are a thorny thing. If information should not be owned, then by all means repeal copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets. But this will change nothing in reference to free software. Closed source software will still exist, only without government copyright protection, it will be encrypted and locked to registered users only.
Look at DVD's for example.
Okay, I am looking at it. But I don't see where my liberty is being taken away. If I don't like that I can only watch a DVD on certain players, then I can choose not to buy it. I don't go buy a beta video tape and then bitch that it won't run on my VHS player. Sony gains zero control over my life when I buy a Sony DVD. If DVD's are that onerous, then some group will create an alternative format. They're doing something similar right now with Ogg Vorbis. You don't even need hardware guys homing in on our turf. Just keep the DVD technology and create a new format to store the information with. This is not that hard to imagine. Remember DIVX? Remember how here at Slashdot we were warned that it would make us slaves to the corporations?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Excuse me. I have to say this. Why 'Men'? Why not 'People'? You're leaving out half the population there with your title. Maybe not half of the population of Open Source zealouts, but half the population of potential newcomers.
If you're trying to unmask the mystery of the free software world to newcomers, maybe you shouldn't start by making it sound like a boys club.
(although I know it really seems like a boys club. there are quite a few of us women out there actively involved...more than you might think by the looks of places like slashdot which only has MEN for authors...)
Lisa
And how are journalists going to make money if speech is free!
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"The front and back doors in your analogy should be for different, unconnected buildings."
No, all freedoms are interconnected in at least two ways. First, as other point out, issues like encryption protect human rights through the use of software. Second, as pointed out in my original post, what's the point of freedom from military juntas without having freedom from state-issued decrees? And what's the point of having freedom from state-issued decrees without having freedom of the press? And what's the use of having freedom of the press without free speech? Etc.
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'So by caring more about real freedom issues rather than the "freedom" of a piece of software I become part of the Big Evil?'
/.ers were in a house. The house is attacked by MS employees! They start beating on (or even pouring through) the front door. You are advocating a defense of "everyone to the front door"--but that leaves the back door unguarded. *I* am advocating a "man every station" approach that leaves our flanks protected. My method also means slightly less defense at the site of the (current) attack but which is worse: being outnumbered 3 to 1 at the front door or 1 to 0 at the back?
No, by advocating that we stop working for freedom at every level you are part of the Big Evil.
Let's say you, I and 8 other
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Once again, you've given arguments that are both clear and beautiful.
:)
I think you are making an important point as to what free software can do if the revolution continues.
-Ben
P.S. Sorry about your stock portfolio
Why a Remote Manipulator System whatelse?
Bread and cheese are food.
God is a powerful, possibly fictional, being who may have created the universe and may be running it.
Love is an emotional bond to a person.
Happiness is a desirable emotional state.
They're all vague, but you can draw a broad enough circle that they make some sense in their most general usage.
Freedom? Freedom means that someone or something won't interfere with something that you're doing. It doesn't make any sense unless you specify what (and possibly who). Use of the word by itself, without this necessary specifier, carries the implication "The freedom you want!" without bothering to ask what that is. It's inherently an act of manipulative deception, used to create fanatic unconditional supporters.
I like open source software. I hate the FSF because they try to treat it as an important moral issue rather than an economic and technical one.
If you cannot accept the views of others, I recommened that you start devising a means of destroying all life in the universe,
I'm working on it. Give me a year or two. I will start with the Anonymous Cowards...
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
...but only listed it among hypocritical ideological movements.
I find their use of the term "free" offensive and misleading.
While I have a moderate dislike for the GPL, and release my own "free" software into the public domain, I do like freely distributable software, especially distributed in source form.
I like gratis software, I like the debugging benefits, and I like reading source. There are many benefits to "free software" without having to apply moralistic nonsense to engineering and economic decisions.
It doesn't rule out making a profit.
I am well aware of that.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Most arguably.
First of all, it's not software. It's a standard.
Secondly, it's "PNG's Not GIF" (they changed it officially). Yeah, they added a pile of features (too damned many features; it's an immense pain in the butt to implement, and arguably not much of an improvement over a gzipped bmp file), and left others out, but it's still basically a GIF clone.
Third, I believe it's becoming an ISO spec, so you'll have to pay to buy a copy of the copyrighted official specification if you want to write "real" PNG software.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
When people talk about "freedom" they usually mean security, or material wealth, or anything else they want and don't have.
Apparently, the FSF believes "freedom" means no selling a product without giving away the documentation unconditionally (except for the condition that it must always be "free"). That's what source code is: documentation, plans, explanations of how to change the product. Source code is speech, object code is mechanism.
That's what they want, so they call it "freedom". Never mind the people who believe they have a right to control and make a direct profit from what they produce; they're wrongheaded and evil enemies of "freedom".
Just as communists call having centralized government control of production and distribution "freedom". The poor people fight the rich people and take their money, and that's "freedom". Never mind the competent managers who increase the value of anything they own, and (by the nature of trade) always provide the other party in any exchange with goods or services of greater perceived value than they must part with; they're wrongheaded and evil enemies of "freedom".
Just as the Americans and the French called having a republican government "freedom". The majority asserted it's control when education became cheap and firearms made fighting men of women and weaklings, and that's "freedom". Never mind the people who believe that the majority is incompetent to rule; they are wrongheaded and evil enemies of "freedom".
Freedom only has real meaning when it's used in a phrase, such as "freedom to...". For example "freedom to walk down a street safely at night without fear of being mugged", "freedom to distribute a product for profit without fear of losing control of it", "freedom to modify or redistribute any products that come into your hands", "freedom to drink either Coca Cola or Pepsi", "freedom to use our arms to take what we deserve by force", "freedom to cleanse our proud race", "freedom from the weakness of morality", "freedom to kill without fear of retribution", "freedom to eat babies and pick my teeth with their bones"...
"Freedom" shouldn't have positive connotations. We don't think it's a good thing for criminals to be free.
Anyone who describes their cause as being about "freedom" is deceiving and manipulating you. The FSF's very name should be a badge of shame. Their "free as in speech" argument is a blatant lie, as few people outside the FSF think "free speech" means an obligation to repeat your notes to everybody who receives a work of yours which is based on those notes, or that "free speech" means giving up your copyright (after all, most Americans claim that they have free speech, but they also have copyright, and don't see a conflict; free speech generally means freedom to state your beliefs, not to make perfect copies of the writings of others).
But I'm getting off track. Other uses of "freedom" in a general sense are just as hypocritical. It always means something else, and usually something that people wouldn't get so worked up over if it was stated plainly.
Say, "I want software that I don't have to pay for and that comes with source code." not "I want free software.". Or say "I want the soldiers to stop stealing my food, burning my books, and teaching my children to rat me out whenever I break one of their stupid little rules." not "I want a free society.". Or "I want to be allowed to make monopolistic business deals, tie my products closely together to leverage one near-monopoly into another, and still have the police arrest anyone who makes copies of them that I didn't approve." not "I want freedom to innovate." If what you want is really admirable, it will shine through without having to use nonsense words like "free".
Of course, honesty may not always be in your best interests, if your goal isn't so admirable, but it's what you need if you don't want people like me as your sworn enemies.
OTOH, the torture/execution Braveheart finale wouldn't have been so dramatic if he had shouted out "Scottish rulers in Scotland!".
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
DVD is a great example of this, as is Sorenson,AOL, msword and ActiveX plugins. Each serve to restrict your choice and funnel you into buying and consuming only certain product.
Bull.
Who are you to say that Microsoft can't market Word because it doesn't work with everything? If you don't like it, don't use it. That's freedom. Same with AOL and DVDs. You don't like how they work? Fine. But you have zero right to tell me that I can't use them, or tell Sony that they can't produce them.
A free market is one where you can put out anything, no matter how open or proprietary. You can also buy anything, no matter how open or proprietary.
No one prevents you, personally, from using a competing product to any of those. That's a free market.
With your logic, nothing is original, not only that, you have no idea what some of these actually do.
Ogg Vorbis is a patentable audio codec which is superior to mp3, but he never patented it...
Perl is (arguably) the most powerful scripting language ever, and is quite original in a lot of its functionality.
OpenAL is not "drivers for soundcards" it is an advanced 3D sound abstraction layer, completely open, which can work with *any* soundcard, never been done before.
Nobody has ever attempted a project like FreeNet before, sure, the idea was spurred by learning of Napster, but Napster and FreeNet are completely different.
DRI, when was the last time you saw 3D graphics support in an OS's kernel?
It is true that most projects are "copies", however, creativity and originality are out there, they may be subtle, they may have been spurred from other ideas, but if we are to exclude the original parts because it may have been built on something unoriginal, than nothing is original.
-- iCEBaLM
Oh stop it. This is the same argument as:
"Hey, polluting is bad"
"So why aren't YOU out cleaning up pollution"
Supporting lesser goods is NOT mutually exclusive with supporting greater goods. Sheesh. We can support "freedom" of software AND freedom of people. I don't think either hurts the other. In fact I think reinforcing ANY good helps ALL good.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
How pretentious!
Every human rights organization in the world has the option of using any of a dozen commercial encryption products with no more risk of exposure to repressive government than with PGP. That has nothing whatsoever to do with free software.
Computers and software, as valuable as they may be, have this difference from a meeting in a public square: you are not reliant on anyone else to be able to speak your mind in a public square. To broadcast ideas on the internet, you must have people willing to help you (computer manufacturers, software coders, telecommunications companies, site hosts, etc.) Crying in a public square demands no positive action from others.
Do not confuse the right to speak your mind with the right of others to refuse to help you.
If someone else controls your software, you do indeed have the potential for someone to control your communications *with that software*. But this do not mean that commercial vendors for software who withhold their source code are working with "the man." Commercial institutions form synergistic relationships according to the demands of the market, and for every threat of a Microsoft colluding with the FBI for exposure of personal secrets, there's a L0pht and a slashdot to find out about it and tell the world.
When I think and consider the people who are "empowered" by free software, I am happy for them. But I find no reason to believe that their access to software has *moral worth*. It is no more fulfilling (probably less so) then their access to clean water or pharmaceuticals -- both of which are provided all over the globe by institutions of every sort, from commercial to charitable to governmental.
Do not overestimate the importance of what we are doing here, folks. We are players in a market, and as such we serve the public. How much we ask for in return is not indicative of our worth, but how much we *get* most certainly is.
Thanks
Flynn777
Men of Zeal does not refer to Free Software advocates, it refers to the people that would manipulate Free Software for their own uses while trying to cloak their activities by acting as if they were advocates.
As the author says, we must be cautious (but not paranoid) before embracing a new adherent to the ideology of Free Software.
Amen, some of the newbies need to learn. I can't stand how many people I've had to correct about RMS.
I'm running RMS 2.2b the "angry icon" release currently, and contrary to many ill informed users, it's stable as hell.
I agree with the final sentence wholeheartedly. However, open source is a tool for freedom. The reason is that computers and networks are now our tools for publication and conversation. So long as we have control over the software, file formats and protocols used, we are free to speak our minds. If I speak out against someone, I am not constrained by a software license that may be revoked under some pretext to silence me.
The whole point of this article, and the very apt quote from Justice Brandeis, is that the encroachments on freedom that enable horrible abuses do not themselves seem significant. It is the small, well-intentioned changes that make the largers ones later possible.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
You may not like what Bruce, RMS et al write...
But at least they have the balls to put their names to what they write.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
And RMS is...
O a proto communist layabout who threatens our very way of life
O a visionary, bringing new social concepts to software, whilst sticking up his fingers to Da Man
O Hemos's alter ego
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Very true.
But part of freedom is choice.
If I cannot get what I need as an OSS package, I will pay for it. And if there is such a need for widget X, then other programmers will be scratching that itch while I'm paying out my cash.
Look at OSS - it is mainly derivative of other closed source software. I am not denying there is a wealth of innovation in OSS; far from it. But a mail client is a mail client, closed or open source.
What must surely be troubling software companies right now is the fact that innovation is easily duplicated by OSS projects. Got a killer app? I give you a month before a workalike hits freshmeat.
The exception to this is where the closed source product is exceptional in complexity. Coming from a Win32 programming background, the one thing I hate about Linux is the lack of OSS professional quality IDES. I don't want to have to piss about with makefiles; I was doing that in DOS 10 years ago, and RHIDE feels like Borland C++ 1.0. Look at Kylix, I would pay money for that, and feel comfortable doing so. At the end of the day, I can produce much more with that in a smaller timescale than I ever will with gcc.
Finally, I choose utility over idealism. If I can use OSS I will, but if no OSS counterpart exists I'll shell out and not lose any sleep.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Richard Stallman, president of the FSF and founder of the GNU project, who wrote GNU Emacs, Gdb and is the principal gcc author. You'll find his homepage at http://www.stallman.org.
Savant
Free Software is a term co-opted by the FSF free software
That term is tied to the GPL.
Open Source wants to be INCLUSIVE. BSD/X11/Artistic/insert fav licence that is open/GPL *ALL* qualify as Open Source.
Last time *I* checked the GPL != BSD != X11, so to say Free Software == Open Source is not correct.
You can pick your words and actions to be inclusive of ALL people who publish their code per the Open Source guidelines, or just limit yourself to the GPL.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Note that in Jonas' piece, the "men of zeal" are not admirable free software advocates. They're the companies that release free-OS versions of proprietary software, and the free software supporters who embrace them. He's arguing that these "men of wellmeaning and zeal but without understanding" may ultimately hurt the movement, unless we remain focused on our freedom.
I don't think the term "zeal" can't be applied otherwise (as many posters are), but that is how it was used here.
- Michael Cohn
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Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
An RMS is Root Mean Squared. When someone says the voltage is "110 volts" they really mean the RMS is 110. See alternating current is a constantly changing voltage, up and down. Its not a constant current. The RMS is the effective voltage of the current, which is somewhat less than the peak.
:)
;)
Oh yea...and RMS is a weird guy who used to sleep under his desk. Sometimes credited incorrectly with inventing free software in the same way that MArx is often credited with starting communism.... just because they both wrote some manifesto
Course RMS also was the original author of EMACS and other things. hmmm wait... so thats RMS. I would guess "a rms" would be an instantiation of RMS. I never knew that he was into cloning.....
Somehow though, I think you knew that
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I was fooled by your mention of lack of any original innovation, gigantic egos and an intensly political process.
I regret my error.
Your wallet stays open. Our source remains closed. We are MSFT
Aside from the whole unproductive "How can you care about X when Y is so much more important?" whine (That's what it means to be free; deal with it.), you ignore the fact that modern technology--software above all--is the greatest threat to freedom of any kind that the world has ever seen. We are now capable of monitoring populations to a level of detail that exceed the wildest dreams of history's most oppresive regimes. We are rapidly approaching a point where surveillance can go from being total against a targeted individual to ubiquitous against all individuals. What price freedom then?
It is because freedom is more important than software that software is going to be one of the most important battlegrounds in future wars for freedom. Without free (as in speech and beer) software, that battle will be lost. (Heck, you won't even be able to tell that the battle has been engaged.)
Lest this sound like mere apocalyptic ranting, consider the FBI's Carnivore program. How much are you willing to trust the FBI that it will never be used against anyone but lawfully designated targets? Without full disclosure of the source, how much are you willing to trust that it can't be compromised by someone other than the FBI? How would your answer change if the authority providing the assurances were The People's Republic of China, Iraq, or Libya? How about Microsoft or Doubleclick?
Too long for /. Go to:
http://vrml3d.com/motive/publicsw.htm
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
...when RMS meant "Root Mean Square", and I thought getting an engineering degree would be both fun *and* profitable.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Oh, please, save us from this "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" bullshit. Not only is it a statement which serves no purpose other than to divide people into factions, but it is also demonstrably untrue. The idea that "for evil to prevail, good men must merely do nothing" might be true ... but to recast this into the idea that "if good men do nothing, they are evil" is logically incorrect, and alienates all those good men from your cause.
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
Well, maybe the Red Cross does real good, but how about education? While for some reason Micro$oft charges schools for its products. Free has a different meaning for schools.
Let's face it: old (elder) people control money and what do they do with it? (semi-rethoric question).
I know don't a country that invests enough money into its school system and in computers too (at least not all schools, let's assume that education should be provided for free by the state (any state) and that computer education is an important part of this). So for these kids free does not only mean gratuit, but it also means their future.
Disclaimer: this is not flamebait
To me, this means that if I use KDE instead of Gnome, and get to like it a lot, and get used to it after years of usage, and never care to use Gnome because despite the fact that Gnome is truly free, KDE is currently free and somewhat better for me, one day the KDE guys get real crazy and decide to charge for KDE then I'm screwed (i'm not even sure their license allows them to do this, but you get my point. I guess they could at least make me pay them royalties if I develop for KDE).
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
Also he makes the statement:
I can see the error in thinking that sharing is necessarily wrong (in some cases it may not be right) but where is the error in thinking that the fees charged are what feeds the employees? If you go back to the paid support model, please tell me who is going to pay a company for support when they can either hire their own people to maintain the source and fix problems or in the case of consumers get one of us geeks to do it for free?
And before you start flaming, realize that I like GPL'ed stuff since I can learn from it, and am busy learning so that I might eventually make a contribution. I simply think that far too many people fail to see the economic realities that make truly free software unviable for a lot of companies.
MacOS is the obvious example. Don't talk to me about Xerox PARC; that was closed too.
Vast numbers of efficient numerical computing and algorithmic innovations, plus the entire field of real-time computing is closed source.
Postscript, too.
And of course, the entire games industry is based on closed standards - DirectX, etc.
If you wanted to give an example of a genuine innovation from open source, I'd give half points for TeX. But that as essentially a one-man-show, from somebody who already had all the prestige he wanted and more.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I'm not talking about entirely new "paradigms" -- just original products. When you take away the free software projects which aren't "Yet Another" this or "Is Not" that, or which aren't attempting to replicate commercial products for Linux, what do you have? Not much. Arguably, PNG and arguably PGP. Not much else. (I can't repeat often enough that neither Napster, Gnutella nor Google are free software. Google even has a patented algorithm, not that you'll hear much about that on Slashdot).
-- the most controversial site on the Web
... and that license fees feed the programmers who write the software.
You bring up this argument, but never present anything to refute it. How are programmers going to make money if their software is free?
... for as fine a collection of tautologies and empty platitudes as I've ever seen. So by caring more about real freedom issues rather than the "freedom" of a piece of software I become part of the Big Evil?
No, by advocating that we stop working for freedom at every level you are part of the Big Evil.
I never said that - what I said was that considering free software to be such an important issue cheapens more important freedom issues. It's great if you want to fight for free software, but it's just not as important as people here seem to think it is.
Let's say you, I and 8 other /.ers were in a house. The house is attacked by MS employees! They start beating on (or even pouring through) the front door. You are advocating a defense of "everyone to the front door"--but that leaves the back door unguarded. *I* am advocating a "man every station" approach that leaves our flanks protected. My method also means slightly less defense at the site of the (current) attack but which is worse: being outnumbered 3 to 1 at the front door or 1 to 0 at the back?
Errm, poor analogy. The front and back doors in your analogy should be for different, unconnected buildings. In which case, you could quite well decide to have everyone at the front door of the more important building, say a hospital, and leave the other, say a library.
We are doing really well. So well that sometimes I wonder if I've died and gone to heaven. But we need new blood to keep the momentum going.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Has it not occurred to you that (a) freedom is not simply the freedom of a person from harm at the hands of their government (b)technology is, while amoral, in the hands of moral or immoral people and (c)everyone isn't best suited to every fight?
(a)People have all sorts of rights besides not being killed. Some are obviously more important, but that doesn't mean that the less important ones are worthless.
(b)If technology is allowed to progress to whatever state it wants behind closed doors, who knows what government (or corporations or whatever) will sart using it to erode the freedoms that you hold more dear. Freedoms are intertwined, and the maintenance of some requires, in general, the maintenance of all.
(c)Not all people are suited to every task. RMS himself has said that there are more worthy causes than free software, but there are better people handling those and noone filling his role in fighting for free software.
Are you seriously suggesting that all people everywhere stop all struggles and try to go fix the problemsin Africa? No more equal rights stuff, no environmental conservationism, no medical treatment, etc. Nothing should go on because there is a more worthy cause somewhere?
Out of curiosity, do you hold the same view against everyoone who has a cause that isn't african children? If not, why is Free Software your whipping boy?
Oh, and are you an intentional troll, or was it just a natural talent shining through? Some of the troll boys around here would be proud of you.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
It is crucial to remember in these discussions that free software is not equal to freedom.
Freedom entails doing what you feel like with what you feel like. Of course, there are limits - your freedom can not encroach on another's, for instance, or cause harm to others.
If I create a software package, and I decide to keep it closed source, patent it, and sell it for 100 dollars a pop, that's MY decision to make.
Freedom does not necessarily equal doing what is "best" for everyone. Even if we could decide what is the best for everyone, it's still within my purview to decide not to do it.
A wise man once said "I may not like what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." (paraphrased)
My decision to open or close my software is my decision alone. You have absolutely no say in it whatsoever. That, right there, is freedom.
Who are "we"? Who consitutes the "community"? Is it strictly developers? Does it contain the users? If so then surely by big corporations using and developing for the alternative operating systems, this makes them part of the community.
And I'm sorry to say it, but freedom isn't the be-all and end-all of computer software.
Example: If you're in a hospital on a life-support machine run by commercial software, would you ask them to turn it off until they could find a free alternative?
Of course you wouldn't.
You sound like a bigot, there's room in this world for commercial AND free software to co-exist. Not all software has mass-developer appeal. A lot of it is boring and just wouldn't be done for the love of it by hackors. Does this mean that this software shouldn't be used?
But we can not by default wholeheartedly embrace every company that attempts this. We have to look at each offering individually and decide for ourselves whether it would help to further our cause or hurt us in the long run
In time, some of the companies might be enlightened to change their business concepts and release their products as free software, but we should never have used their software or accepted it for use on our systems in the first place. By doing so, we sacrifice our own freedom for convenience
Comments like these scare me. Not because I don't agree with free software, but because they smack too much of a crusade. You don't want to drive companies out of business just because you don't agree with them. The problem that many commercial developers have with the open source movement is that they get rudely branded by what come across as extremist zealots. Several times now, licenses have been misinterpreted by one person, skimming quickly, looking for what he deems are violations. And these have become headlines at Slashdot. The whole mentality here is overly brash and annoying. As usual, that's doing more harm than good.
Gotta disagree with you on the last part.
Linux is the backbone of Africa's emerging IT infrastructure, which is one of the keys to more freedom, education and prosperity in that region.
Contributing to Linux helps Third World countries and the former Soviet Union develop economic stability... and nurtures the free speech movement in China... There are countless 'ripple effects' that are positive side effects of free software.
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In time, some of the companies might be enlightened to change their business concepts and release their products as free software.
/.) are profitable, so the open source business model is not even proven. Encouraging companies to risk their future and their developers jobs on an unproven business plan out of a misguided philanthropic effort is counterproductive. Instead, we should encourage more developers who hold "regular jobs" as commercial developers to contribute to OS projects in their free time. OS is a movement by developers for developers; lets focus on promoting this OS movement instead of that presented in RMS's anti-capitalist rants.
Why is it assumed that commercial software and free software must exist in opposition to one another? Simply because this is RMS's position? The fact is that the free software community has flourished because most software developers earn enough money working to develop commercial software so they are able to dedicate a portion of their free time to develop free software.
Throughout history, art and culture is at its peak when people are well-off. The fact is that neither Red Hat nor VA Linus (parent of
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
An increasing number of people today feel that the world ought to focus more on the freedom issues of free software rather than the technical or economical ones.
To be honest, I think this whole "freedom" issue as gotten waaay out of hand thanks to the nature of the net to allow like-minded people to reinforce each other's ideas. There is a huge difference between being able to vote and being able to change the code for a piece of software, and it cheapens the very real fight for freedom and democracy that is taking place in many countries across the world that people here are more concerned over whether software companies "get it" than whether military juntas butcher children in Africa.
Software is just software people. In the big wide world it just doesn't matter whether someone runs Linux or they run Windows 2000. Linux, and the whole free software "revolution" is not going to change the world into some utopian paradise. But by describing it in metaphors of struggle and revolution ("Men of Zeal" indeed!) it overstates the importance of a minor squabble over the right to have access to source code. Freedom is much more important than software.
Rather than donating money to the FSF, you'd be doing far more good for the world by donating it to organisations like the Red Cross who do real good for people who need it. There are people out there who don't know what software is, let alone have the time and resources to argue over esoteric points of view on it. They are the ones for whom freedom is an issue.
They have been taught that sharing is wrong and that license fees feed the programmers who write the software. Having difficulty understanding the fundamental error in this reasoning is often the reason why these individuals fail to grasp even the basic concepts of free software.
Having difficulty understanding the fundamental error in this reasoning is probably also the reason Mr. Oberg forgot to explain it to us. Personally, I'm a big fan of writing software, selling licenses, and using the money to pay people, who can then buy food. In my mind, it really beats the one where I write software, and release it free, and get kicked out on the street and starve to death. If someone wanted to pay me to write free software, that would be great, but I have a feeling I'm stuck in this model for the rest of my working life.
If you are modding me down because you disagree with me, use the "Flamebait" category, not the "Troll" one.
I was just thinking about something related to this, and wondering whether I could stretch it out enough for a Freshmeat editorial. (I'm too cheap to pay for a t-shirt.)
Frequently, when a legal issue is raised here, you'll see a post that "It seems like you need to be a lawyer to work on free software today!" I sympathize with that feeling but I think it's misguided. The real problem is people who think they are lawyers.
Today, free/open/whatever software has thousands of people working on it, a peanut gallery of hundreds of thousands and companies with market caps in the billions. And it's all based on licenses whose legal implications have never been explained by anyone knowledgeable. You get these endless, nasty arguments about the GPL between developers. Small groups of them reach a consensus and then vilify anyone who violates the license as they understand it. No one seems to be interested in asking the opinion of anyone with a genuine clue.
Not to open a KDE/Gnome flamefest (there's a perfectly good one in the next story), but the Debian vs. KDE debate is a good example of this. The Debian project asserts, with an air of complete certainty, that distributing KDE binaries violates the GPL. KDE says it doesn't. Everyone else rants at each other. Does anyone actually know? Does anyone care to know?
I think it's necessary for someone with a pile of IPO cash -- Red Hat, VA, SuSe, Eric Raymond, somebody! -- to get some legal advice and actualy figure out what the GPL and other licenses mean. Better yet, hold a conference and invite some leading IP law professors. Then the rest of us can go back to clawing one another's eyes out without the need to preface it with IANAL.
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What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
And tabloids are just tabloids
And newspapers are just newspapers
And state-issued decrees are state-issued decreens
And military juntas are just military juntas
Freedom starts at home. Unless you are making your tiny piece of the world free you are part of the problem.
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Nobody has yet come up with an explanation of why it is that "The Community" has never, once, come up with a major original piece of work.
perl
Ogg Vorbis
Freenet
DRI
OpenAL
-- iCEBaLM
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All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
A few points:
Just because you can freely copy something doesn't mean you should.
Just because you have to pay for something doesn't necessarily mean its bad.
From what I've been able to observe, the business model of free software revolves around service (ala Redhat and others), while the business model of conventional commercial software revolves around product. Linux has proven that commercial products don't necessarily produce a better product but its a little early in the game to predict and gloat over the demise of the commercial model. No matter what, altruism and geek innovation only carries things so far.
Some things you may actually have to pay for. Despite my anti-corporate tendencies and sympathies for the free software movement (even though I'm a techno-whore consultant), I think this insistence on ideological purity is a bit misguided.
Jonas Oberg writes: If freedom is of the most importance -- and it should be at all times -- the choice is always quite clear.
This, quite simply, bullshit. At least in the context of his post/essay. He doesn't mean freedom, as in freedom of choice, he means freedom as $0.00 and no repurcussions to modify/change/stamp your name on it and claim it for your own. He's actually arguing about restricting your freedom. Every once in a while, a vendor makes a product (and they want to be compensated for that product, and glowing peer review doesn't pay corporation's payroll expenses) and every once in a while its a product you either need or want. This guy suggests the honorable ideological response, that is, not to use it at all (rather than pirating it), but its still not very bright. It reminds me of a guy I took a foreign relations class with that kept insisting we needed to "do something" about Tibet. Sanctions? China just trades with someone else. The French, British, Germans, Japanese haven no problem with it. Invade? More people die than are already dying. Dialogue? It's what we are doing now. Its really all we can do. The situation, as unsavorable as it is, is something you have to deal with. Kinda like sometimes having to buy commercial software because a comparable free product isn't available and you don't have the time/money to develop it yourself.
I mean, I'd love to have my food and housing and transportation provided to me for free, and I'd churn out the code I really want to churn out (world creation simulations and games, of course) but reality is I have to pay my food, and housing, and transportation costs, so I charge money to write code I don't want to write. If a company writes software as its primary product, is it so unreasonable for a company to expect to get compensated when you use that product? Does it really make sense for you not to use that product because its not free, its source code isn't available? Even if its useful? Even if no competing product is as good? Even if you need to?
There are lots of cases where free software is superior to commercial software. There are also lots of cases where the reverse is true. You should use the one thats best for you or the company you work for, and not be constrained by some idealogue's idea of purity for the cause.
Consider that communications are essential to organizing a human rights movement. Computers and software are key to communications about human rights today in the way that free speech in a public square was during the American revolution.
If someone else controls our software, we have the potential for someone else to control our communications. We are getting close to scenarios of ubiquitous law enforcement with things like trusted client technology that has legitimate uses, but can also be used to stop your computer from carrying certain messages, like the radio-jammer "iron curtain" of the 50's and 60's.
Consider the people who are empowered in their everyday lives by the availability of low-cost software that they can customize to their needs and pass around to their peers with impunity. Think of the program that is placing Linux systems in the hands of Mexican students as one example.
Do not underestimate the importance of what we are doing here, folks.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
I really think someone should point out that there is no hidden section in the Linux Advocacy FAQ which says "Adopt the most pompous tone of voice possible. Imitate Jefferson when describing software licenses. Patronise. Speak ex cathedra. Above all, bore". And therefore, there is no need to imitate the prose styles of either Eric Raymond or Richard Stallman.
Despite what some think, the "Community" is not a Platonic Republic of beautiful people, creating wonders for the service of humanity. It's a bunch of noisy, egotistic, sometimes vicious people, attempting to knock off a version of Unix for personal amusement and gratification. Nobody has yet come up with an explanation of why it is that "The Community" has never, once, come up with a major original piece of work (don't talk to me about the Internet. Developed in academia and government, a completely different model). But it's quite clear; because there is a place for patents, to encourage investment in new invention (a bore would at this point quote the US Constitution).
And that's the point. There are horses for courses. Sensible, limited patent and copyrights help to stimulate creativity and reward people for doing really great stuff. They have their place. A totally "free" world would be one in which the rewards flowed to loud-mouthed blowhards who managed to steamroller their code through the intensely political process of an open source project, and then managed to lever their one or two projects into spokesmanship for "The Community", or even worse "My Tribe".
Don't believe me? Look at the main characters of the Free Software movement. How many of them don't have more or less serious ego issues? One, Alan Cox. An ego trip for talented programmers is, on balance a good thing. But it isn't a way of life, or a value system. And it doesn't deserve the language of the King James Bible.
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