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Freedom or Power?
mpawlo writes: "As reported by Gnuheter, a new essay published by Bradley M. Kuhn and Richard M. Stallman carries the title "Freedom or Power?". The authors state something that we might have suspected from essays from Kuhn and Stallman before, but now is a little more clear, if still ambiguous: "However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the "freedom to choose any license you want for software you write". We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom." The essay is interesting in the light of an earlier essay published by Eric S Raymond. ... Tim O'Reilly started the debate with his weblog of July 28, 2001: My definition of freedom zero."
Ed. note - FWIW, Stallman and Kuhn are right. Not necessarily in their advocacy of the GPL, but certainly in their description of whether licensing is freedom for the developer or power over others. All licensing stems from copyright law, a completely man-made creation whose sole purpose is to give the writer of creative works artificial power over what others do with those works. If you take the canonical description of freedom ("Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins") and apply it to software, it's pretty clear that true freedom would not let one person control what another does with software.
Stallman comes across as a lunatic with the "my way or you are evil" type mentality.
Stallman is a tried and true Marxist who puts value only on physical labor and does not believe that intellectual capital should be permitted to have any value. His rationalization about "power" is laughable but does make me feel _better_ about using Microsoft software. My reply to Stallbaby would be: JUST BECAUSE __YOU DECIDE__ TO USE MY SOFTWARE DOESN'T MEAN __I HAVE TO__ MOVE MY BIG FAT WHITE BUTT TO GIVE YOU THE SOURCE. YOU KNOW AHEAD OF TIME WHETHER YOU GET THE SOURCE OR NOT; IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT TOUGH.
Free software (if you want to make money then become a slave, err, consultant running down projects)! Free music (if you want to make money, go on a tour)! Free video (one paid showing and that's it -- actors - no more residuals for you)! Join the revolution now to FREE the masses!!! What a hoot!
The guys at Microsoft are probably laughing their asses off with that article.
You are a fruitcake. You sound like an English teacher or a marketing troll, not a techie... Re-read your post and feel very ashamed...
So the question is, should government be in the business of creating capital markets for software?
I'm a programmer. I only code for money or, RARELY, as in once a year, for my own personal enjoyment. As such, I don't care how the market is created as long as it exists and I can be a part of it. Do an informal poll and I think you'll find most programmers (that are working, not that are in school and thus obsessed with idealistic shit like GNU and the FSF) feel similarly. At least, every programmer I've ever met did.
I worked with a guy (nameless in public) who was once on a project with RMS. My former co-worker said RMS was lazy and couldn't code for shit (this was just his opinion, but this guy has a PhD in comp sci and has worked for Sun, Cray, and other big-ticket companies and is the most accomplished programmer that I know), except when he went home and worked on what he wanted to work on. Maybe RMS wants the world to make their software free so that he can get quick cash without worrying about being sloppy?
I know if I could just download the answer to all my projects I'd spend about half the time on them, but I'd feel pretty dirty. But, lots of people wouldn't, look at the popularity of Java. I hear there used to be such a thing as professional integrity.