Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the pontificating dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Stallman has written a piece on the state of free software and where it needs to go now, in celebration of GNU turning 20 today. It's available both on NewsForge and Linux.com."
Your assertion fails when you state what open source developers should and should not do in order to gain end-user acceptance. Whereas a commercial outfit has a motive to sell as many copies of the software they create just in order to survive, and must therefore carefully think about and target their audience/market, most open source developers are simply "scratching their itch", and if others can benefit from that, then fine. If they can't, then, well, tough... Projects that directly target the non-developing enduser, such as OpenOffice, and to a lesser extent KDE etc. should, of course, take the non-developer end user as their main audience, something that is very, very difficult. If you are an end user and you need easy-peasy, non technical, non developer software, you can always go for the paid-for open source software (not Free Software, usually) such as Xandros, Lindows, StarOffice, etc. there is plenty of hand holding there.
Unless, of course, you expect handholding for free, a different case alltogether.....
-- People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Where to go party?
by
DrMorris
·
· Score: 4, Informative
There is a webpage for the 20th anniversary of the GNU project, but I can't see any planned events. Does anybody know if there are or have been some GNU parties around the world?
Apparently you didn't fully RTFA. Stallman doesn't believe the goal of getting people to use free software is popularity but because they want the freedom that comes with it. As copyright enforcement through copy protection or other means becomes progressively harsher for the end user, it'll become more clear that the reason that can motivate people to use free software isn't that everyone else uses it but because they don't want to live in an entrapped world of software. To that end, Stallman admits that people will end up using free software that's inferior to non-free software, but given enough users some might begin to help with the project. Maybe it'll be only words of support or a little money to add a feature they want, but the free software can be made superior to the non-free one and people can choose to use the free software as encouragement until it gets to that point. If anything, Stallman is encouraging the communitizing of the people in free software, not the simple leeching of something that's free. In the long term, the former will help everyone. And if end users realize that, they can accept inferior software until it becomes superior.
-- Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
It is true that he has done a lot to further it's progress, but lets face it, this is the person who hates debian simply because they include THE OPTION (which, mind you, has to be enabled by editing a text config file) of downloading non-free software.
He doesn't "hate" Debian at all. That's patently untrue. He has said however, that he doesn't recommend Debian because of the free vs non-free issue and instead encourages the use of GNU/LinEx.
This is the guy who refuses to follow the proper procedures laid out hundreds of years ago by the French revolutionaries (you
all know what I mean), etc
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Ok, since the Linux kernel allows binary modules, it's not necessarily "free software". Does that mean that the Hurd kernel won't allow binary modules, or open wrappers (Nvidia)?
Linux is licensed under the GPL. Hurd is licensed under the GPL. Neither has any exceptions or additional grants. GPL goes as far as the copyright does. Everything that is derived from Linux and Hurd will have to be GPL. Now it happens to be that not all kernel modules can be considered to be derived from Linux so whatever Linux copyright would be (be it BSD, GPL or any Microsoft license), it wouldn't matter.
Proprietary binary modules for the Linux kernel can be written in some circumstances because in those circumstances the Linux license (the GNU GPL) is irrelevant. The situation with the Hurd is exactly the same. What Linux developers and Hurd developers think about binary modules that are not derived from Linux and Hurd, is irrelevant.
Well, let me give you a hypothetical example. Document imaging is big business and let's say you have a company called XYZ that specializes in document imaging solutions for hospitals.
One day all the leading industries decide to take an open source document system and spend a few million dollars to code in the features they want. That way they'll have an open source(free) document management system and in the long run spending a million to get it up to speed will save them money over paying companies like yours licensing fees.
So is your company done for? Not really. The key to what your document imaging company provides for hospitals is NOT the software, but the ability of your company to create solutions that improve a hospital's workflow. Nobody knows a hospital's document imaging needs like your company, because you've been doing it for years. No one is better qualified to take that open source project and customize it, repackage it and support it for hospitals than your company.
If the hospitals use that open source software they still need someone to support it. They still need someone to install it. If it doesn't do feature X, they still need someone to add that feature. And that's where your company comes in.
Furthermore you end up with a reduction in costs. It's just not your company fixing bugs and adding features to that software, a lot of other industries are as well. That means your programmers can focus more on tasks suited to support your clients rather than on core basic features or bug fixes.
Think of it in these terms, what are you really selling when you sell a 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 software product over the course of several years? You're selling the ability of your company to make their business more effective. People buy the 2.0 product because they'll be 10% more effecient than if they stay with the 1.0 product. Open source is no different, except instead of selling the software you're selling yourself. YOU make the use of that software 10% more effective, through support or continued customization, so it's cost effective to purchase your services. And instead of selling a 2.0, 3.0 verion of the product they can just buy a yearly support contract from you.
Re:I agree mostly..
by
nysus
·
· Score: 4, Informative
You shouldn't try to make Stallman out to be something he is not. Stallman's whole argument for free software hinges on one single principle: that making an unscarce resource artificially scarce to make a profit is wrong. If you want to debate this one point, that's great. But to insinuate he is some kind of hippie-communist-crackpot for his belief, you do a disservice to logical debate.
The goal of free software is not to create software jobs, it's goal is to promote ethical conduct. Besides, Stallman has never argued it's "bad" to charge for writing code. If someone needs their free software modified, it's perfectly OK to get paid for your work.
So I pose this question to you, and answer it without referring to Stallman: Is it ethical to limit a naturally limitless resource to make a buck?
--
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
MODERATORS, WAKE UP
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Did you wonder how someone could write such a toughtful reply in under 2 minutes?
The parent and the grand-parent have been copied from the comment area at the end of the Linux.com article.
Even if Steve 'Rim' Jobs and cornstalk are the same person, it is immoral to post something as AC just to be able to repost a canned reply.
Parent and grand-parent should be modded down.
Invidious Drivers!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Did anyone else notice "For instance, what should we say when the non-free Invidious video driver, the non-free Prophecy database, or the non-free Indonesia language interpreter and libraries, is released in a version that runs on GNU/Linux?" (emphasis mine).
Doesn't he mean nVidia's video driver?
Invidious means "Tending to provoke envy, resentment, or ill will."
I don't know about you, but I found it funny.
Re:Invidious Drivers!
by
Queuetue
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I think all three of these were not only intentional, but whimsically obvious nods to specific proprietary software.
Re:Invidious Drivers!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
OK, so:
Invidious video driver == nVidia's XFree Driver, Prophecy database == Oracle database Indonesia language interpreter and libraries == Java language interpreter and libries (the Island of Java in Indonesia)
Re:So the Win98 community is in good shape, then?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Progeny has stepped up and is offering support for Red Hat.
The latest stable release of Debian is 3.0r2. The last update to this release was made on November 21st, 2003.
Do you have any other stupid comments to make?
Re:RMS = William Wallace?
by
Just+Some+Guy
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The open source community is much better off...
That's the core of your misunderstanding. Open Source is not the same as Free. The concepts are orthogonal. While Open Source is about pragmatism, Free Software is about morality, and it's not reasonable to expect arguments about practicality to influence someone's moral beliefs.
The ideals you mention belong to the Open Source movement, and your thoughts will be most welcome there. RMS and his co-believers will not agree with you, ever, and you need to know the differences between the groups to understand why.
-- Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
ESR is adamant that there's no philosophical issue other than a simple issue of how to frame the movement so that people's prejudices aren't rankled.
I don't think that's an accurate representation of what he said in the statement you linked to.
In that statement ESR first waffles around the issue of philosophical differences (e.g. talking about how he cares about rights too but not at yet commenting on whether he cares about or believes in the same rights as RMS) then recognises that there ARE philosophical differences ("The Open Source Initiative does not have a position for or against RMS's goals", I don't think you can get a much more clear cut difference than that) THEN having acknowledged that difference he says that the real difference is over "tactics and rhetoric."
But tactics to achieve what? Presumably the open source movement must have some sort of goals, since he talks at length over how well it is achieving them. I don't think he ever says what the goals are but if the open source movement doesn't take a position on RMS' goals then its goals must be different to RMS'. Surely if they have different goals, then that has to be more fundamental than the differences in tactics. In fact having different goals would seem like one likely explanation of differences in tactics.
The only basis left for saying that there is no difference in philosophy between open source and free software is to say that RMS doesn't get to say what free software stands for. Fair enough in itself, but we'd have to knock ESR off his perch on the same basis.
MOD DOWN! COPIED FROM LINUX.COM!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
The parent and grandparent post were both copied from the linked linux.com article. Check for yourself and Mod Down please.
GNOMErs gleefully point [LGPL] out as the major selling point for GNOME over KDE.
There are many reasons why GNOME fans like GNOME. That is only one, and certainly not one that motivates RMS.
Bruce Perens has cited that as the reason why GNOME is better for a business distribution. He believes that if businesses want the option of running proprietary software, a business-oriented distribution should provide that option. RMS believes you are more free if you don't have that option, but he grudgingly concedes that sometimes that option is okay (which is why the LGPL even exists).
steveha
-- lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Slashdot Mirror
Your assertion fails when you state what open source developers should and should not do in order to gain end-user acceptance. Whereas a commercial outfit has a motive to sell as many copies of the software they create just in order to survive, and must therefore carefully think about and target their audience/market, most open source developers are simply "scratching their itch", and if others can benefit from that, then fine. If they can't, then, well, tough... Projects that directly target the non-developing enduser, such as OpenOffice, and to a lesser extent KDE etc. should, of course, take the non-developer end user as their main audience, something that is very, very difficult. If you are an end user and you need easy-peasy, non technical, non developer software, you can always go for the paid-for open source software (not Free Software, usually) such as Xandros, Lindows, StarOffice, etc. there is plenty of hand holding there.
Unless, of course, you expect handholding for free, a different case alltogether.....
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
There is a webpage for the 20th anniversary of the GNU project, but I can't see any planned events. Does anybody know if there are or have been some GNU parties around the world?
Apparently you didn't fully RTFA. Stallman doesn't believe the goal of getting people to use free software is popularity but because they want the freedom that comes with it. As copyright enforcement through copy protection or other means becomes progressively harsher for the end user, it'll become more clear that the reason that can motivate people to use free software isn't that everyone else uses it but because they don't want to live in an entrapped world of software. To that end, Stallman admits that people will end up using free software that's inferior to non-free software, but given enough users some might begin to help with the project. Maybe it'll be only words of support or a little money to add a feature they want, but the free software can be made superior to the non-free one and people can choose to use the free software as encouragement until it gets to that point. If anything, Stallman is encouraging the communitizing of the people in free software, not the simple leeching of something that's free. In the long term, the former will help everyone. And if end users realize that, they can accept inferior software until it becomes superior.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
He doesn't "hate" Debian at all. That's patently untrue. He has said however, that he doesn't recommend Debian because of the free vs non-free issue and instead encourages the use of GNU/LinEx.
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Linux is licensed under the GPL. Hurd is licensed under the GPL. Neither has any exceptions or additional grants. GPL goes as far as the copyright does. Everything that is derived from Linux and Hurd will have to be GPL. Now it happens to be that not all kernel modules can be considered to be derived from Linux so whatever Linux copyright would be (be it BSD, GPL or any Microsoft license), it wouldn't matter.
Proprietary binary modules for the Linux kernel can be written in some circumstances because in those circumstances the Linux license (the GNU GPL) is irrelevant. The situation with the Hurd is exactly the same. What Linux developers and Hurd developers think about binary modules that are not derived from Linux and Hurd, is irrelevant.
Well, let me give you a hypothetical example. Document imaging is big business and let's say you have a company called XYZ that specializes in document imaging solutions for hospitals.
One day all the leading industries decide to take an open source document system and spend a few million dollars to code in the features they want. That way they'll have an open source(free) document management system and in the long run spending a million to get it up to speed will save them money over paying companies like yours licensing fees.
So is your company done for? Not really. The key to what your document imaging company provides for hospitals is NOT the software, but the ability of your company to create solutions that improve a hospital's workflow. Nobody knows a hospital's document imaging needs like your company, because you've been doing it for years. No one is better qualified to take that open source project and customize it, repackage it and support it for hospitals than your company.
If the hospitals use that open source software they still need someone to support it. They still need someone to install it. If it doesn't do feature X, they still need someone to add that feature. And that's where your company comes in.
Furthermore you end up with a reduction in costs. It's just not your company fixing bugs and adding features to that software, a lot of other industries are as well. That means your programmers can focus more on tasks suited to support your clients rather than on core basic features or bug fixes.
Think of it in these terms, what are you really selling when you sell a 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 software product over the course of several years? You're selling the ability of your company to make their business more effective. People buy the 2.0 product because they'll be 10% more effecient than if they stay with the 1.0 product. Open source is no different, except instead of selling the software you're selling yourself. YOU make the use of that software 10% more effective, through support or continued customization, so it's cost effective to purchase your services. And instead of selling a 2.0, 3.0 verion of the product they can just buy a yearly support contract from you.
The goal of free software is not to create software jobs, it's goal is to promote ethical conduct. Besides, Stallman has never argued it's "bad" to charge for writing code. If someone needs their free software modified, it's perfectly OK to get paid for your work.
So I pose this question to you, and answer it without referring to Stallman: Is it ethical to limit a naturally limitless resource to make a buck?
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Did you wonder how someone could write such a toughtful reply in under 2 minutes?
The parent and the grand-parent have been copied from the comment area at the end of the Linux.com article.
Even if Steve 'Rim' Jobs and cornstalk are the same person, it is immoral to post something as AC just to be able to repost a canned reply.
Parent and grand-parent should be modded down.
Did anyone else notice "For instance, what should we say when the non-free Invidious video driver, the non-free Prophecy database, or the non-free Indonesia language interpreter and libraries, is released in a version that runs on GNU/Linux?" (emphasis mine).
Doesn't he mean nVidia's video driver?
Invidious means "Tending to provoke envy, resentment, or ill will."
I don't know about you, but I found it funny.
The latest stable release of Debian is 3.0r2. The last update to this release was made on November 21st, 2003.
Do you have any other stupid comments to make?
That's the core of your misunderstanding. Open Source is not the same as Free. The concepts are orthogonal. While Open Source is about pragmatism, Free Software is about morality, and it's not reasonable to expect arguments about practicality to influence someone's moral beliefs.
The ideals you mention belong to the Open Source movement, and your thoughts will be most welcome there. RMS and his co-believers will not agree with you, ever, and you need to know the differences between the groups to understand why.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
ESR is adamant that there's no philosophical issue other than a simple issue of how to frame the movement so that people's prejudices aren't rankled.
I don't think that's an accurate representation of what he said in the statement you linked to.
In that statement ESR first waffles around the issue of philosophical differences (e.g. talking about how he cares about rights too but not at yet commenting on whether he cares about or believes in the same rights as RMS) then recognises that there ARE philosophical differences ("The Open Source Initiative does not have a position for or against RMS's goals", I don't think you can get a much more clear cut difference than that) THEN having acknowledged that difference he says that the real difference is over "tactics and rhetoric."
But tactics to achieve what? Presumably the open source movement must have some sort of goals, since he talks at length over how well it is achieving them. I don't think he ever says what the goals are but if the open source movement doesn't take a position on RMS' goals then its goals must be different to RMS'. Surely if they have different goals, then that has to be more fundamental than the differences in tactics. In fact having different goals would seem like one likely explanation of differences in tactics.
The only basis left for saying that there is no difference in philosophy between open source and free software is to say that RMS doesn't get to say what free software stands for. Fair enough in itself, but we'd have to knock ESR off his perch on the same basis.
The parent and grandparent post were both copied from the linked linux.com article.
Check for yourself and Mod Down please.
Why, then, does he advocate GNOME
"Because it's part of the GNU system."
GNOMErs gleefully point [LGPL] out as the major selling point for GNOME over KDE.
There are many reasons why GNOME fans like GNOME. That is only one, and certainly not one that motivates RMS.
Bruce Perens has cited that as the reason why GNOME is better for a business distribution. He believes that if businesses want the option of running proprietary software, a business-oriented distribution should provide that option. RMS believes you are more free if you don't have that option, but he grudgingly concedes that sometimes that option is okay (which is why the LGPL even exists).
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely