Slashdot Mirror
FSF Launches Associated Membership Program
Andy Tai writes "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has launched an associated membership program. Support Free Software by becoming an FSF associated member.
From the FSF website:
On Monday 25 November 2002, we launched the FSF Associate Membership
program. Now, you can support FSF by becoming a
card-carrying associate member.
You can find out about the rates and benefits
of membership, sign up to be an Associate Member,
login to edit your membership options, and even read briefly about some current projects of FSF.
" Seems a little odd to me, but what do i know ;)
FSF software is actually quite a bit more business friendly than MS software. With Linux I don't have some corp looking over my shoulder telling me how I can use their software and asking me to upgrade every 2 years for large sums of cash.
I don't believe the FSF has ever sicked the BSA on anyone either.
What's driving the economy isn't the software business, it's businesses using software. When businesses use open source software they can take ownership of it in ways they never could with proprietary software. There are no license restrictions, no pay to be current upgrade schemes, no sales reps dropping by the manager's office selling beta technology.
If Linux wasn't helping to drive the US economy, then Oracle and IBM wouldn't be standing behind it.
Perhaps you've heard of the DMCA?
If you dislike laws like that, wouldn't it be great to have an organization to help fight legal battles that might eventually bring down bad laws, or perhaps loobby to help stop them in the first place?
Well there is such an organization, it's called the EFF!! By giving money to them you aren't just helping develop free software, you are helping to pay for legal fight that make it possible to keep writing Free software.
Rather than waste any time and effort of futile boycotts, why not join the EFF instead and help an organization that is actually doing something real.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Except for that bit about not being allowed to change the license terms. That's a bit of a sticky wicket, isn't it?
If you own the copyright on the software you're free to change the license anytime you want.
If you don't own the copyright, then no you can't steal it and release it under your own license. Wow, what a bummer.
If you don't own the copyright, then no you can't steal it and release it under your own license.
How can I steal it if it's "free?" If it's "free" I should be able to do what I want with it, right? Let's take a very reasonable case: let's say I want to create a derivative of Readline. (Imagine some neato improvement to Readline, like allowing it to support Unicode [if it doesn't already].) Let's say that I want to release my derivative under the LGPL.
Damn! Can't do it! Readline is only available under the GPL, so people who create derivative works from it aren't allowed to release those works under any license less restrictive than the GPL.
Yeah. That's "free" for you. It astounds me that the same Slashdotters-- not necessarily yourself, though you may be one of them too-- can deride things like the DMCA and the Department of Homeland Security while upholding the FSF as standing for "freedom." The FSF commits Franklin's fallacy more blatantly than anyone else: those who would sacrifice liberty for security-- as the GPL most certainly does, in restricting the liberty of the user to ensure the continued availability of derivative works-- deserve neither.
Life is all about compromise. If you want to license your software under restrictive terms for your own ends, be my guest. But don't be so arrogant as to call what you're doing "freedom," and what others want to do "stealing."
I write in my journal
Jesus, it's amazing! $10 a month!? Everyone bitches about M$ and Windows day in and day out. Yet I'm sure IE is prob /.'s biggest browser client. How do you get that? Uh, you have to have Windows (or CX Office/Wine :). So, short of pirating copies to install, you've all bought $100 of M$ crap! Possibly on a yearly or so basis. Then people whine about $10 for a foundation that, at least tries to help distribution of code instead of locking it all up for just a few people to benefit from!
Does Stallman own all GPL code? No. Do users get to keep copyright to the code they contribute? Yes. Are you free to use pretty much any GPL code in your application *and* sell it? Yes. Just include the source.
Oh, you're right, grandma and grandpa and mom and dad and Jim VC-less research Nerd down the street will wanna steal your trade secrets and compile your latest source for the coolest Mozilla plugin, therefore, screwing you out of a fortune. Get real! The reason M$ has switched from panic mode to embrace mode is because they see Linux server and desktop shipments are on the rise. Without the GPL, the computer industry would be in worse shape than it is now. If Quicken doesn't wanna write a client because they can't innovate some way to make money on Linux, then so be it. Where they fall, others will rise.
Everyone want's freedom when it's gone or don't care about it when it's there. Well, screw that. If you don't want an IE dominated web, use Mozilla or the OS equiv. If you want a M$-less domintate office, use Open Office. If you want to have control of your own audio or video content use a GPL OS or OS X. And if you want freedom in an industry that mostly doesn't care much about your freedom, then consider a piddly, measely, $10/mo. Something you probably wouldn't think twice about paying to the latest crappy blockbuster movie out there. Jeeze, 10$..
"That bit" is there to stop the license being useless, as its aim is to keep software being written in the interests of the community, rather than a few parties.
Ah, yes. Let's put the good of this nebulous idea called "the community" ahead of the good of the individuals. That logic has worked so well in the past, you know.
This all boils down to the same thing: redefining "freedom" to suit one's own ends. Orwell had a name for that; he called it "newspeak."
Let's drop the euphemisms and speak plainly: the GPL is a restrictive license, just like any other restrictive license. The GPL differs from other restrictive licenses only in what activities it does and does not allow; it is not fundamentally different from any other restrictive license.
I write in my journal
My main concern is that the Free Software Foundation doesn't deserve a cent of my money, or any of your money for that matter. The entire organization is ran quite similarly like the dictator third world countries we all hate. Don't believe me, why don't you go read any interview of the makers of Gnome (now Ximian) or linux kernel developers.
Read here, Linus basically likes free software not because it's so super politically cool, but for other reasons like most software to him sucks so he likes to make it work for him and if he uses it he doesn't have to worry about it not staying free. Hell Miguel de Icaza is working on a .Net for linux called Mono, how much more not free software do you need to be.
The FSF is a wonderful idealistic thing that doesn't take into account that we're not a communisitic or remotely socialistic soceity in the "developed world". And I can say developed world, because lets face it, poor third world countries don't need computers or source code to look at.
If you are able to spend $10 a month I would highly encourage a donation to your favorite opensource project, political party, or charity, it will be money well wasted on the FSF.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
If you are programmer, best way to support FSF is to donate code not money. Why? Because potentially code you submit will have more value in monetary equivalent than money you likely to donate.
But this program could be useful for people not directly connected to software industry, but who believe in FSF goals and want to help.
Now why is it that everybody seems to quote Orwell to support their own argument. He wrote a lot of interesting essays on the use of language, and I'm not sure he'd agree with you here.
You see, the idea that freedom = an individual's freedom to do what he/she wants, is a relatively recent idea, and is certainly not the only accepted definition. If you look in contemporary American dictionaries, they will almost always define freedom as "the right to do something without external control", which supports your post. But even the "founding fathers" recognised that freedom always comes with duty (which isn't surprising as they studies a lot of Locke's work), and that if you divorce freedom from duty, it is meaningless. The duty in your case is the duty to protect one's own freedom from others.
But this is where that "nebulous" idea of community comes in. You see, Free Software is written in and by a community, and is then used by that community as well as others, so I do not see why "community" should be described as a hazy term. The community has a duty to protect its freedom, as well as the freedom of other communities, if it wishes to affirm the right to freedom of others (unless you don't believe in equality...). This is what the GPL does. It restricts you by giving you freedom with duty.
Yes, it is restrictive, and so in that regard is not funamentally different from other restrictive licenses. But it is funamentally different from most other licenses, including those like the X11 and BSD licenses, in that it recognises the duty to the community which must come with the freedom the community has given.
Here's my main dilemma with this whole program. Other than having some lawyer types on retainer, or on staff, or whatever; other than paying for a connection to the Internet (for all I know that's being sponsored by some large college, company, or other such organization); and other than authoring/maintaining some informative but kindergarten-complexity web pages (Savannah excluded), what exactly are the dollars paying for?
- The FSF doesn't pay for GNOME, or binutils, or the Linux kernel, or probably 99% of the code out there that's GPL'd.
- Having heard a lot more about EFF's legal efforts than those of the Digital Speech Project, I somehow doubt that legal fees are making too many FSF folks broke right now.
- Richard Stallman seems to be making lots of personal appearances at trade shows and such... But then again, unless I'm mistaken he's paid to do that by the folks who want him to make an appearance, not by the FSF.
- Do tapes of FSF code (you supply the tape, by the way) still cost somewhere around $200/each? Good God, that's about $500/hour for copying code to a tape!
Look, I'm sure the FSF does have expenses, and I'm not going to bemoan them for trying to raise cash. That's what non-profits do. However, before I give dime one to a non-profit I want to know EXACTLY what that money is for. Sorry, but I don't give to slush funds.
Learn from organizations like Linux Weekly News. When they went to a subscription model they offered details on how many folks are on staff, how many hours they're paid to work, what it costs to run the site, how many subscriptions it'll take just to break even, what their plans are for the future, etc. At the FSF, all I see is "hey, we have lots of cool stuff that's mostly done by volunteers and we've done wonders for the Free Software movement, so give us $120/year".
Sorry, but that just isn't enough. You want my money? Justify my contribution.