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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
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.
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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.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Jesus...and all this time I thought it meant "root mean squared".
I just thought that everyone thought "root mean squaring" something was either really likeable or really objectionable.
Now, I'm gonna have to go back and actually read a whole bunch of articles over again. I thought you open source people were just excited to discover the power of squares and square-roots.