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."
Stallman asserts that "non-free software carries with it an antisocial system that prohibits coopoeration and community."
This is MOST certainly overstating the importance of software's influence on each person's ability to cooperate and experience community. And I assert that this is where the open source movement fails.
While open source software promotes cooperation and community for the developers involved in its creation, it doesn't attempt to build community by creating more user friendly tools.
The general popluation doesn't care about the right to see the source code, most of the users of computers can't do any thing with the code any way. Open source project managers and developers need to better consider their end users. End users are not always other programmers, some are teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, housewives, grandparents.
Usability must extend into high quality instructional programs that provide the information at the user's fingertips. Job aids and other electronic performance support tools that address the needs of the non-developer community will do more to foster cooperation and community between the developers and their users.
After all what good is any application free or not without a high probability of end user acceptance?
First of all, Open Source is a movement and Free Software is another. They have completly differents phylosophies and objectives as well.
The main concept of this kind of freedom is to give users the power to copy, modify and redistribute a software or a manual. This improves life quality and the karma (not the/. one) of the human beans. This is all the GNU Project is about: try to improve socially the humans.
If you have a free software but it isn't working well and doesn't do what you exactly need, no matter: you can just fix it because you have the source code. But if you don't know how to program, you can ask some friend of your to do it. If you don't have a programmer friend, you can hire someone to do it. That's all the beauty.
People need to see free software as a social movement. It gives you a chance to be a better human being by sharing your knowledge with your neighboor.
Stallman asserts that "non-free software carries with it an antisocial system that prohibits coopoeration and community." This is MOST certainly overstating the importance of software's influence on each person's ability to cooperate and experience community. And I assert that this is where the open source movement fails.
Tell that to people in developing nations that can't afford to buy licenses for proprietary software. Those who wouldn't have access to a computer or the internet at all if not for Free Software.
First of all, Open Source is a movement and Free Software is another. They have completly differents phylosophies and objectives as well.
For those curious about the differences, ESR's take on it is here. 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.
Stallman himself writes quite a good bit on why he's not happy with the Open Source movement and believes the framing is doing more harm than good which someone quoted in my journal:
"At a trade show in late 1998, dedicated to the operating system often referred to as ``Linux'', the featured speaker was an executive from a prominent software company. He was probably invited on account of his company's decision to ``support'' that system. Unfortunately, their form of ``support'' consists of releasing non-free software that works with the system--in other words, using our community as a market but not contributing to it.
He said, ``There is no way we will make our product open source, but perhaps we will make it `internal' open source. If we allow our customer support staff to have access to the source code, they could fix bugs for the customers, and we could provide a better product and better service.'' (This is not an exact quote, as I did not write his words down, but it gets the gist.)
People in the audience afterward told me, ``He just doesn't get the point.'' But is that so? Which point did he not get?
He did not miss the point of the Open Source movement. That movement does not say users should have freedom, only that allowing more people to look at the source code and help improve it makes for faster and better development. The executive grasped that point completely; unwilling to carry out that approach in full, users included, he was considering implementing it partially, within the company.
The point that he missed is the point that ``open source'' was designed not to raise: the point that users deserve freedom."
If you have a free software but it isn't working well and doesn't do what you exactly need, no matter: you can just fix it because you have the source code. But if you don't know how to program, you can ask some friend of your to do it. If you don't have a programmer friend, you can hire someone to do it. That's all the beauty.
And it sounds great in principle. It's in practice that it runs into trouble. Imagine, for instance, that I'm a freelance graphic designer, or do 3D visualization work, or whatever. And imagine that there are features of Photoshop or Quark or Maya or AVS that aren't available to me in the Gimp or Sodipodi or Blender or OpenDX or whatever (actually, I think the latter two are open source but not free software, but anyway). The suggestion above would be to roll up my sleeves and program in those features. But, in our example, I can't: I'm not a programmer. Nor do I have the time to become one and do that work when all my time is spent doing the actual work for which I get paid.
So then the second answer is to ask a programmer friend. But, even assuming I have said programmer friend, and assuming that programmer friend doesn't have something he/she would rather be doing, these aren't trivial enhancements we're talking about and such functionality will take a while.
So then the next suggestion above is to hire someone. With what money? And how can I justify spending ten times or more the cost of some proprietary software package hiring programmers to improve (or create) a free software competitor? Especially when my hypothetical freelance business probably isn't exactly rolling in the dough.
Well, RMS would say that the justification for spending that money to improve free software options is a dedication to freedom. And if it's really not possible to spend that money on that purpose, because I simply don't have it, then dedication to freedom demands foregoing that proprietary option, and simply doing without that feature set. But in my hypothetical case, that means doing without that client, or that income. So much for my hypothetical business; time to find another way to feed my kids.
My example is contrived, of course. For many (most? dunno.) users of proprietary software, free software alternatives exist that will do everything they want, and do it well. But for many others, that's not true. And telling those users to simply forego doing what they want or need to do as a stand for a cause is a very big request. Of course, people have sacrificed their economic health, and much more, for the cause of freedom before. But not for something as seemingly esoteric as free software; rather, it's been the freedoms accompanying equality of race or gender or religious background under the law.
Until RMS can persuade people that the freedom to modify the software one uses is as important as the freedom to work in the field of your choice without being held back by race or gender or religion, people and businesses are going to have a tough time justifying sacrificing their financial security for that freedom.
Oh, and it shouldn't matter, but just in case it does: I don't have any propriety software installed on my machine, and very little open-source-but-not-free-software stuff as well. I'm not making this post because I don't believe in free software; rather, because I don't think some free software advocates really realize just what big a thing they're asking people to do, and consequently how large a burden of justifying it they have.
A key element (to me, at least) of the above thread - there has to be an infrastructure in place to allow money to flow to developers, in return for features to flow to users. This is Non-Trivial - in fact, it's what most dot-bomb enterpreneurs called a Business Model, and we saw how many of those actually worked out, didn't we?
Hooking up users and producers is where business, finance, and marketing people live, and they're pretty good at it. Unfortunately, they want to be paid, too, so we're no longer talking about just paying programmers. Then there's the startup costs - it takes a while to get a critical mass of users, so unless you're working for an existing company, non-profit, university, or government, you have venture capital folks, and later shareholders, to answer to.
Who is making a profit off free software? Red Hat? Are they making it selling software, selling customization, or selling support?
It may be Free software, but until there's some kind of business model in place to allow Profit from its generation and support, then proprietary software will continue to exist, even if only in niche markets where there aren't enough interested hackers to build solutions for free.
-- I love vegetarians - some of my favorite foods are vegetarians.
I think this sentiment is exactly why we need to understand RMS's point in this article about the difference between the goals of popularity and preserving freedom (the core difference between the Open Source and free software movements).
The Open Source movement is completely compatible with your philosophy: they tell you that source code availability is a good thing because it produces software that's better.
On the other hand--and this is a point I think you've missed--free software is better because it's free. Preserving freedom is the goal, and the availability of the source code is only one necessary step on the way to that goal.
If you choose a piece of free software, you have important freedoms, regardless of whether you ever read the source code (these are taken from the GNU project's Free Software page):
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose - It's your damn computer, right? Don't you think you should be in charge of what you're using it for and why? Or should your software vendor? I don't want Adobe telling me I can't paint pictures of elephants because the CEO got scared by one.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor - I like to help my friends. If I want to give my friend a bite of my sandwich I don't want Safeway telling me "Sorry, your friend must buy his own sandwich from me."
And even though you yourself do not enhance the software, when you choose free software you enjoy the side benefits of others' exercising that freedom.
RMS makes the very clear point in this article, and in his other writings, that you are mistaken when you say:
So for me, you're no different than MS.
The Open Source movement would have you believe this: that Open Source software is but one competitor for popularity. But the free software movement's goal isn't popularity, it's freedom, and that is very different from Microsoft (for you and other users), because Microsoft isn't interested in preserving your freedom (which by the way doesn't make them bad guys, in my opinion, they just have a different goal).
You see I don't care about source code
That's fine. But you should care about freedom.
-- demi
I agree mostly..
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Richard, I agree with your pitch on free software to some extent, but how exactly are we in the IT business going to make a living if all (or most) of the software is free in the future? Why shouldnt someone charge for their software if its good and useful, why should they give away the design or their work, and isnt a little commerical competition good? If software developers should work for free, why not electronic engineers, architects, every profession? Like you, I dont agree with monopolies and those that abuse them, but thats another issue. If being a professional (charging) software developer becomes "bad" or "unfashionable", then isnt that a bit unfair on good, honest and reliable developers? We dont live in a 23rd century moneyless community, and communism didnt really take off in its various guises, so what are you promoting, a utopian future in every sense, a turn away from capitalism? But how can this just apply to software?
Re:I agree mostly..
by
BJZQ8
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· Score: 3, Insightful
You make money like everything in the GNU/FOSS movement...by charging for services, installation, operation. Electronic and engineered items are harder to pass on to someone else, who can also make a contribution; software, on the other hand, allows you to make a copy, change it, and pass it on to someone else who might also make changes. That's hard to do with a bridge or a VCR.
Re:I agree mostly..
by
squiggleslash
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· Score: 5, Insightful
but how exactly are we in the IT business going to make a living if all (or most) of the software is free in the future?
The same way most of us programmers make a living in the IT business - being paid to write software. Most software is not written for commercial sale, and while I have no difficulty understanding why people outside of the industry aren't aware of this (as the software they see advertised on the TV, etc, is obviously for sale), I do question how anyone in the computer industry could fail to spot this rather obvious fact.
Most software is written to solve particular problems. In my case, my business needs software to maintain and analyse volumes of financial information provided for a particular industry. A factory needs software to run its machines and process its payroll. A bank needs software to run its ATMs, to process financial transactions, to enable and log all communications between offices in a standardized way. Most of this software is customized for the needs of the end-user.
And elsewhere, hardware manufacturers will always want operating systems to be developed and have an incentive to pour development time into improving them, as they will basic tools such as word processors and spreadsheets. Games will continue to be developed, the trend right now is to build amazing games as data hooked up to standardized, centrally developed, game engines, and I suspect we may even see game engines become a part of operating systems in the long term (something a hardware manufacturer has an active incentive to further develop) - meanwhile, nobody's going to be concerned about the notion of selling maps/scripts that use these engines.
I see no problems with a shortage of jobs for programmers, and I believe the incentives to develop that tiny percentage of software that actually is sold today will continue to exist, just in a different form.
-- You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Re:I agree mostly..
by
anthony_dipierro
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Math is free, but we still have mathematicians. Laws are free (usually), but politicians still get paid to write them. Phone books are free, but people still get paid to compile them. Land title histories are free, but employees of title insurance companies still get paid to research them. "Free Software" doesn't mean software developers work for free. It's simply a matter of whether or not you want your job to be recreating stuff made by other people or creating new things.
Re:I agree mostly..
by
jrexilius
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Damn fine post. I think a point you make that some miss is that commodity type applications will become free where as there will still be a demand in the market to innovate. I think what this means is that the number of developers will decrease while the skill demand will rise. Free or open software will have the effect, particularly in conjunction with off-shoring, of reducing the number of jobs available to us as commodity developers. But there will still be a healthy demand for custom developers. I personally think that this is A Very Good Thing. Conflict and competition combined with a higher standards base can only benefit society as a whole.
RMS doesn't say you shouldn't charge for software, he says that the software should come with the FREEdoms to modify, share and copy it. Notice that the FSF sells GNU software on CD on their website...
I don't want to be the one dissin' RMS, but I think he needs a sanity check or just stop being a "spokesperson" for the Free software community. 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. 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
He gives the Free software community a bad name, and with him on the forefront, Free software will never be part of corporate america (which is becoming more and more synonymous with America itself.)
He gives the Free software community a bad name, and with him on the forefront, Free software will never be part of corporate america (which is becoming more and more synonymous with America itself.)
I disagree. Without people like Mr. Stallman, The free software movement would not be where it is today. His "problem" is that he envisions a perfect world where all software is free. This is a noble goal, but the reality is that this will never be. There will always be need (and a market) for non-free software. But keep in mind also that not everyone in america is a corporation.
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 goes to the core of what I and many others don't like about RMS -- he dislikes choice. Debian strongly encourages Free Software. Heck, they were founded on the concept of a Free Software distribution of Linux. However, because Debian offers users the option of non-Free Software, RMS no longer recommends it. In his somewhat Orwellian stance, RMS boldly claims that to be free one must not have the choice to use commercial software. He's so wrapped up in the concept that not sharing your source is an inherently Evil idea that he forgets that true Freedom includes the option to shoot yourself in the foot.
I dislike the polarized, fanatical "either with us or with the terrorists" stance that he takes towards proprietary software. I don't like it in politics, and I don't like it in the philosophy of software development. Plus, I don't like how he has only words of criticism and scorn for those who are making moves towards his stance but have not yet fully committed to it. You're just not good enough unless you're pushing for a total abolition of non-Free Software.
He's certainly more civil nowdays than to openly claim to hate Debian, but he certainly doesn't think it's good enough, and that's pretty much the parent poster's point.
-- If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
He's already accomplished a great deal.
by
Meat+Blaster
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Before the contributions of Stallman, and those designing software under the GNU banner, who would have noticed the horrid direction proprietary software and hardware have us headed in?
They've demonstrated not only that it is possible to roll your own system (GNU/Herd, GNU/Linux, EMACS, and the myriad utilities), but also why it is necessary. What must come next in this new era of DRM are those who can create their own hardware, free of the oppression and lock-in that tomorrow's systems will have. But we will not ask ourselves what we can run on our homebrew hardware, because an answer is ready thanks to the efforts of the Free Software Foundation.
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)? If not, does Stallman think that developers can create drivers for proprietary hardware that are at least as good as, if not better than, those provided by the manufacturer?
Or, is "free software" just the first stepping stone to "free hardware," where every innovation is public, and any competitor is free to use your innovations?
mod me troll -1 but...
by
jasonbowen
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Anybody else envision some larger than life figurehead standing at a podium telling you exactly what you need to do to be happy and that they have all the answers? I enjoy the spirit of cooperation and the quality of code that has come out of open source and free software but I'll be damned if I think it's the only way to do things.
Re:RMS.. Corporate America = America???
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dada21
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Why did you say something so untrue? How is corporate American becoming America? I own corporations, yet I have very little control over other citizens. If they don't want my products, they don't buy them from me.
The average citizen has far more control over my corporation than I have over them. They can refuse to buy. They can open their own competitive business. They can vote in the town I am in to ban my product or my business. They can zone me out of their neighborhoods. They tax my sales and use that money in ways I disagree with. They tax my property. They tax the money I pay my employees. They tax my profits, too.
How is Corporate America a bad thing? Corporations that are friendly with the government are given benefits (cheap loans, tariffs against competition, and even regulating competition out of the business) is NOT a free market, but a mercantilist one. America was never supposed to be mercantilist, it was supposed to be capitalist. Capitalism allows no monopoly, but mercantilism does.
And mercantilism can only happen from government getting involved in economic planning -- ruin from the start.
RMS still doesn't get it...
by
goldspider
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· Score: 5, Insightful
"non-free software carries with it an antisocial system that prohibits coopoeration and community"
If most people's expectation of software was to create "cooperation and community", RMS mmight be onto something here. But the truth is that most people and businesses want software that fulfills a particular need (or set of needs).
As long as RMS continues to deny the purpose of software for most people, free software will never meet the needs of the masses.
-- "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Black & White vs shades of gray
by
IamTheRealMike
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· Score: 5, Insightful
This is the problem with RMS - he is too black and white.
If you have read his writings, he has fairly convincingly argued from first principles that software should be free. I, and many others, have read this and been inspired, because the world he ultimately wants to live in is about co-operation and sharing.
However, RMS often leaves people behind with his extreme on/off view. This sentance is pivotal:
Users cannot be free while using a non-free program
This is seriously distorting his already bent definition of "free". Freedom, as he defines it, can be applied to software (and with a bit of work books, music etc) and while you might argue with the word used it's a useful concept to have.
Here though, he applies the word free to users, and this is a different thing entirely. Worse, he asserts that all it takes is one piece of non-free software to spoil his utopian dream.
I think a lot of people like the idea of free software, but we're willing to accept compromise. It's not an all or nothing proposition. Free software have inherantly good vibes because we're not imposing arbitrary limitations on what people can do with what we made (which is ultimately beneficial) but it's not like I'm a slave to the machine because I use the NVidia video drivers.
Yeah, I'd like to have free drivers, but Alan Cox himself has said he cannot think of a way to justify NVidia freeing their code - their fears of what would happen to their business if they did that are justified, he thinks. That's good enough for me. In this case, it just isn't practical. I don't like it, but that's life.
God bless Richard Stallman for giving us GNU. God Bless Linus Torvalds for making it usable.
-- No todo lo que es oro brilla
So the Win98 community is in good shape, then?
by
emil
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I read today that Win98 is nearly 25% of the desktop clients on the internet.
If Win98 were open, somebody would be stepping in to support it as Microsoft bowed out.
Win98 is not open, and now everyone who drank the coolaid is beginning to feel the effects of the arsenic.
Commercial software is always a ring in your nose. The GPL can also be a ring, but it is lighter and the developing entity generally does not hold the chain as tightly.
RMS is before his time.
by
Cytlid
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I can see where he is going with this. But before much of this can happen, other things have to happen. I recently changed my sig to compare RMS to Abraham Lincoln. I did some (quick, incomplete) research on the emancipation proclimation. One site describes is as "The first of many documents that slowly freed human slaves in the United States." The operative word here being "slowly". Much of the tech industry is still in its infancy. The best we can hope for right now is a "melting pot" effect. As people become more tech-aware and tech-savvy, maybe they'll embrace free software more, and even contribute to it. All it takes is enough of proprietary software, commercial entities and monopolies to get on the nerves of most people before radical change can take effect. I just believe that RMS is really ahead of his time. He could very well be the "first of his kind that slowly freed people from technical constraints."
Just my $.02.
-- FLR
Re:RMS is before his time.
by
s20451
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Are you a troll? Or are you actually comparing the moral courage that eliminated slavery, and triggered the bloodiest war in US history, to a particular method of software methodology?
Don't get me wrong, I think the GPL is a good idea. But what really turns me off about GNU is their casting of the GPL as some sort of ideological crusade between good and evil. Nobody is being oppressed or having their human rights violated by using proprietary software. The market should be allowed to decide which model should prevail (or if both should coexist), without being tainted by some sort of acquired "morality".
I believe future historians will judge RMS as having done about as much harm as good.
Why, then, does he advocate GNOME when it (more than anything else in the free software ecosystem) enables closed, non-free propriatory software?
GNOMErs gleefully point this out as the major selling point for GNOME over KDE.
I don't have a problem with the license choice, just the hypocrisy.
Re:Open Source and Broader Community
by
Mr.+Slippery
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· Score: 4, Insightful
This is certainly overstating the importance of software's influence on each person's ability to cooperate and experience community. And I assert that this is where the open source movement fails.
Except for two little facts:
Stallman is a member - a founding member - of the free software movement, not the open source movement.
Both the free software and open source movements are succeeding spectacularly.
The general popluation doesn't care about the right to see the source code, most of the users of computers can't do any thing with the code any way.
The general population doesn't install new plumbing fixtures either. But only a fool would buy a house where all the pipes were kept locked away with only one plumber having the key.
-- Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog You cannot wash away blood with blood
Re:a curious quote and comparison
by
bain
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· Score: 3, Insightful
This will be taken as flamebait, but I don't care.
Freedom right now in the USA is only limited to what can make them more money, not other countries that might limit/threaten their freedom.
By this I DO NOT mean in a direct assault on freedom itself, but by affecting the standards of living in the USA. The recent exposed plan in the 70/80's to invade oil rich countries to protect their oil needs is only one example. Need I mention DMCA and other laws to protect the corporate companies rather then the consumer.
Also note this is not a reflection of the mass population in USA, but the direction the goverment and corporate pressures on them are steering USA into.
Pretty soon the USA will turn into a class based system where only the rich and influential can effect the government and freedom of it's population goes out the window.
The scary part is most of it's citizens and for that matter the world will think the USA is still in a democracy, but it will be ruled by the rich and influential
Majority vote is only effective if the votes are informed and heard, not when they are recounted and recounted to fit somebody elses view of how the results should have been (yes I do believe that was a direct alteration to change the outcome of the election).
-- Sanity is a majority vote.
All or nothing?
by
ShaggyZet
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· Score: 3, Insightful
RMS seems to believe free software use should be an all or nothing proposition, especially with regard to proprietary ports to free systems. That's a fine argument to make.
But what about a more gradual approach? So what if someone wants to run Weblogic and Oracle on Linux instead of Weblogic and Oracle on Windows? Maybe the transition to Tomcat and PostgreSQL on Linux is too much for them right now, for technical or political reasons. Maybe they'll switch eventually.
Or, maybe they won't. Isn't it still a positive change, a change providing more freedom? Would RMS rather that that user just stay on Windows forever, using no free or open software at all? I realize that RMS in his ideology above all else, and certainly above any pragmatism, but this kind of transition is a win for everyone. Even if the example user never switches to 100% free software.
Re:Another RMS post
by
nuggz
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· Score: 3, Insightful
RMS is all talk and no walk RMS has done a lot for free software. He has written significant amounts of it.
He doesn't want Linux called GNU/Linux, he wants a GNU system with the Linux kernel called GNU/Linux.
Think of this like buying a GM vehicle (system) with a Honda engine(kernel). You wouldn't call it a Honda, Likely either a GM, or GM/Honda vehicle.
The SCO mess is a temporary trivial harrassment, not really a serious problem. They have no proven claims, and unless they actually document one, they will probaly collapse under IBMs countersuit.
Users cannot be free while using a non-free program.
Hey RMS, didn't they offer intorductory logic at MIT?
Seriously, there is no logic to the above statement, it is totally bereft of value as a supporting argument. Particularly since it is patently false.
What should have been said is:
Users cannot be free until the M$'s and RMS's of the world let them make their own software choices free of obfuscation and misrepresentation.
Do you really seek to abridge the rights of end users to use the product which does the job best for them? Do you seek to abridge the rights of developers to dispose of their work as they see fit?
This argument is more akin to religious extremism than reasoned argument. I do not debate your right to have strong (and wrong) opinions. I will hotly debate the conclusions you would have people draw from your opinions.
Your assertion about the Invidious Video Driver Et. Al demonstrates this clearly. Your position seems to indicate that using any non-free software to resolve a problem is somehow wrong. Nothing can be further from the truth. Given two pieces of software X and Y where X is non-free but conforms to the requirements, and Y is free but does not satisfy all requirements, that users should select Y over X, despite the fact that X performs the required job and Y does not. This is where the argument gets it's religious flavor. What other term can I apply to a position which exhorts users to deny the evidence of their senses in the pursuit of some (likely unattainable) Xanadu?
As for those who create software, who has the right to determine how they dispose of their property? Your position on this is merely the antithesis of the Microsoft/SCO position. Nor is your position any more tenable than theirs. Microsoft/SCO assert that free software is somehow immoral, and you assert the opposite. I suggest that neither of your opinions matter a hill of beans.
It is unseemly for anyone who purports to support Free, as in freedom, to seek to villify developers for exercising their freedoms.
The simple fact of the matter is that your extremist position is no more valid than the extremist positions of your antagonists. Like most such positions, it has no place in the real world. In the real world, you seek solutions which work, regardless of their dogmatic purity. Several times in the last century people tried superimposing dogma over reality, by and large those experiments failed. Those that still are with us have had to yield to reality to continue to exist.
There is no one "right" answer in the free v. non-free software debate. The "right" answer is not blanket dogma, but the result of an unbiased analysis of the situation, and a choice based on that analysis and the constraints of the real world we live in, wether you are a producer or a consumer of software.
-- "Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A. "Talk minus action equals/." -
It pains me to see how misunderstood RMS is on /.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 3, Insightful
If Linus was never born, eventually, someone else would have written a kernel. It might have come a few years later, and it might not be as good as the linux kernel, but it would come.
If RMS was never born, BSD would be closed/proprietary. So would KDE and gnome wouldn't exist. The GPL wouldn't exist and the face of Free software would be completely different.
"The less a man makes declarative statements, the less he's apt to look foolish in retrospect." --Quentin Tarantino
Thats true. Ever try to debate religion with an agnostic? it aint easy! Linus takes this approach with Free Software. Its hard to find fault with anything he says because he says very little. He is a good diplomat; he unifies the clans and presents a pleasant face for bussness.
The only problem with this is there are important things that need to be said! RMS is the one saying them. He gets down and dirty despite it being a position of less dignitty. He is not socially conscious enough to be diplomatic, he is blunt and to the point like a laser and i respect that.
There are 2 types of GNU users: -Those who use it because they feel its the best tool for the job, the Open Source Movement -Those who use it because they feel that Freedom is a philosophically superior position, the Free Software Movement
If the situation was reversed, and windows was Free and GNU/linux was closed, I would be a Windows zealot. So, in a way, the license is more important then the code.
Its unfortunate that some newbies have the impresson that he is trying to take credit for "linux". He deserves more credit then he is asking for. Also unfortunate, that its easier to understand Linus' contribution then his, because his is more complex.
He is not trying to "steal linux". He is the granddaddy of us all, and where he leads i will gladly follow.
Mutually Exclusive Freedoms
by
Aidtopia
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Today, I can choose to write free software or closed software. It's my choice, and I like it that way. I have nothing against the free software movement, but I disagree with RMS when he suggests that I shouldn't have the freedom to develop software and try to make it a commercial product of it. Why should I only be allowed to market services like installation and support?
Software developers should be like academians? OK. Not all mathematicians share their advances. I know some who develop proprietary models of the stock market for an investment company. It's not for everyone, but shouldn't they have the freedom to choose such a pursuit.
And what makes software so special? Shouldn't hardware be open? Aren't chips mostly designed with source code now? Aren't production costs getting so low that they are essentially commodities like software?
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Stallman asserts that "non-free software carries with it an antisocial system that prohibits coopoeration and community." This is MOST certainly overstating the importance of software's influence on each person's ability to cooperate and experience community. And I assert that this is where the open source movement fails. While open source software promotes cooperation and community for the developers involved in its creation, it doesn't attempt to build community by creating more user friendly tools. The general popluation doesn't care about the right to see the source code, most of the users of computers can't do any thing with the code any way. Open source project managers and developers need to better consider their end users. End users are not always other programmers, some are teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, housewives, grandparents. Usability must extend into high quality instructional programs that provide the information at the user's fingertips. Job aids and other electronic performance support tools that address the needs of the non-developer community will do more to foster cooperation and community between the developers and their users. After all what good is any application free or not without a high probability of end user acceptance?
Richard, I agree with your pitch on free software to some extent, but how exactly are we in the IT business going to make a living if all (or most) of the software is free in the future? Why shouldnt someone charge for their software if its good and useful, why should they give away the design or their work, and isnt a little commerical competition good? If software developers should work for free, why not electronic engineers, architects, every profession? Like you, I dont agree with monopolies and those that abuse them, but thats another issue. If being a professional (charging) software developer becomes "bad" or "unfashionable", then isnt that a bit unfair on good, honest and reliable developers? We dont live in a 23rd century moneyless community, and communism didnt really take off in its various guises, so what are you promoting, a utopian future in every sense, a turn away from capitalism? But how can this just apply to software?
Moderators: this isn't meant as a flamebait.
I don't want to be the one dissin' RMS, but I think he needs a sanity check or just stop being a "spokesperson" for the Free software community. 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. 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
He gives the Free software community a bad name, and with him on the forefront, Free software will never be part of corporate america (which is becoming more and more synonymous with America itself.)
Thank you for reading this.
They've demonstrated not only that it is possible to roll your own system (GNU/Herd, GNU/Linux, EMACS, and the myriad utilities), but also why it is necessary. What must come next in this new era of DRM are those who can create their own hardware, free of the oppression and lock-in that tomorrow's systems will have. But we will not ask ourselves what we can run on our homebrew hardware, because an answer is ready thanks to the efforts of the Free Software Foundation.
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)? If not, does Stallman think that developers can create drivers for proprietary hardware that are at least as good as, if not better than, those provided by the manufacturer?
Or, is "free software" just the first stepping stone to "free hardware," where every innovation is public, and any competitor is free to use your innovations?
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Anybody else envision some larger than life figurehead standing at a podium telling you exactly what you need to do to be happy and that they have all the answers? I enjoy the spirit of cooperation and the quality of code that has come out of open source and free software but I'll be damned if I think it's the only way to do things.
Why did you say something so untrue? How is corporate American becoming America? I own corporations, yet I have very little control over other citizens. If they don't want my products, they don't buy them from me.
The average citizen has far more control over my corporation than I have over them. They can refuse to buy. They can open their own competitive business. They can vote in the town I am in to ban my product or my business. They can zone me out of their neighborhoods. They tax my sales and use that money in ways I disagree with. They tax my property. They tax the money I pay my employees. They tax my profits, too.
How is Corporate America a bad thing? Corporations that are friendly with the government are given benefits (cheap loans, tariffs against competition, and even regulating competition out of the business) is NOT a free market, but a mercantilist one. America was never supposed to be mercantilist, it was supposed to be capitalist. Capitalism allows no monopoly, but mercantilism does.
And mercantilism can only happen from government getting involved in economic planning -- ruin from the start.
If most people's expectation of software was to create "cooperation and community", RMS mmight be onto something here. But the truth is that most people and businesses want software that fulfills a particular need (or set of needs).
As long as RMS continues to deny the purpose of software for most people, free software will never meet the needs of the masses.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
If you have read his writings, he has fairly convincingly argued from first principles that software should be free. I, and many others, have read this and been inspired, because the world he ultimately wants to live in is about co-operation and sharing.
However, RMS often leaves people behind with his extreme on/off view. This sentance is pivotal:
This is seriously distorting his already bent definition of "free". Freedom, as he defines it, can be applied to software (and with a bit of work books, music etc) and while you might argue with the word used it's a useful concept to have.
Here though, he applies the word free to users, and this is a different thing entirely. Worse, he asserts that all it takes is one piece of non-free software to spoil his utopian dream.
I think a lot of people like the idea of free software, but we're willing to accept compromise. It's not an all or nothing proposition. Free software have inherantly good vibes because we're not imposing arbitrary limitations on what people can do with what we made (which is ultimately beneficial) but it's not like I'm a slave to the machine because I use the NVidia video drivers.
Yeah, I'd like to have free drivers, but Alan Cox himself has said he cannot think of a way to justify NVidia freeing their code - their fears of what would happen to their business if they did that are justified, he thinks. That's good enough for me. In this case, it just isn't practical. I don't like it, but that's life.
RMS sees it differently. That alienates people.
God bless Richard Stallman for giving us GNU.
God Bless Linus Torvalds for making it usable.
No todo lo que es oro brilla
I read today that Win98 is nearly 25% of the desktop clients on the internet.
If Win98 were open, somebody would be stepping in to support it as Microsoft bowed out.
Win98 is not open, and now everyone who drank the coolaid is beginning to feel the effects of the arsenic.
Commercial software is always a ring in your nose. The GPL can also be a ring, but it is lighter and the developing entity generally does not hold the chain as tightly.
I can see where he is going with this. But before much of this can happen, other things have to happen. I recently changed my sig to compare RMS to Abraham Lincoln. I did some (quick, incomplete) research on the emancipation proclimation. One site describes is as "The first of many documents that slowly freed human slaves in the United States." The operative word here being "slowly". Much of the tech industry is still in its infancy. The best we can hope for right now is a "melting pot" effect. As people become more tech-aware and tech-savvy, maybe they'll embrace free software more, and even contribute to it. All it takes is enough of proprietary software, commercial entities and monopolies to get on the nerves of most people before radical change can take effect. I just believe that RMS is really ahead of his time. He could very well be the "first of his kind that slowly freed people from technical constraints."
Just my $.02.
FLR
Why, then, does he advocate GNOME when it (more than anything else in the free software ecosystem) enables closed, non-free propriatory software?
GNOMErs gleefully point this out as the major selling point for GNOME over KDE.
I don't have a problem with the license choice, just the hypocrisy.
Except for two little facts:
The general population doesn't install new plumbing fixtures either. But only a fool would buy a house where all the pipes were kept locked away with only one plumber having the key.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
This will be taken as flamebait, but I don't care.
Freedom right now in the USA is only limited to what can make them more money, not other countries that might limit/threaten their freedom.
By this I DO NOT mean in a direct assault on freedom itself, but by affecting the standards of living in the USA. The recent exposed plan in the 70/80's to invade oil rich countries to protect their oil needs is only one example. Need I mention DMCA and other laws to protect the corporate companies rather then the consumer.
Also note this is not a reflection of the mass population in USA, but the direction the goverment and corporate pressures on them are steering USA into.
Pretty soon the USA will turn into a class based system where only the rich and influential can effect the government and freedom of it's population goes out the window.
The scary part is most of it's citizens and for that matter the world will think the USA is still in a democracy, but it will be ruled by the rich and influential
Majority vote is only effective if the votes are informed and heard, not when they are recounted and recounted to fit somebody elses view of how the results should have been (yes I do believe that was a direct alteration to change the outcome of the election).
Sanity is a majority vote.
But what about a more gradual approach? So what if someone wants to run Weblogic and Oracle on Linux instead of Weblogic and Oracle on Windows? Maybe the transition to Tomcat and PostgreSQL on Linux is too much for them right now, for technical or political reasons. Maybe they'll switch eventually.
Or, maybe they won't. Isn't it still a positive change, a change providing more freedom? Would RMS rather that that user just stay on Windows forever, using no free or open software at all? I realize that RMS in his ideology above all else, and certainly above any pragmatism, but this kind of transition is a win for everyone. Even if the example user never switches to 100% free software.
RMS is all talk and no walk
RMS has done a lot for free software.
He has written significant amounts of it.
He doesn't want Linux called GNU/Linux, he wants a GNU system with the Linux kernel called GNU/Linux.
Think of this like buying a GM vehicle (system) with a Honda engine(kernel). You wouldn't call it a Honda, Likely either a GM, or GM/Honda vehicle.
The SCO mess is a temporary trivial harrassment, not really a serious problem. They have no proven claims, and unless they actually document one, they will probaly collapse under IBMs countersuit.
Hey RMS, didn't they offer intorductory logic at MIT?
Seriously, there is no logic to the above statement, it is totally bereft of value as a supporting argument. Particularly since it is patently false.
What should have been said is: Users cannot be free until the M$'s and RMS's of the world let them make their own software choices free of obfuscation and misrepresentation.
Do you really seek to abridge the rights of end users to use the product which does the job best for them? Do you seek to abridge the rights of developers to dispose of their work as they see fit?
This argument is more akin to religious extremism than reasoned argument. I do not debate your right to have strong (and wrong) opinions. I will hotly debate the conclusions you would have people draw from your opinions.
Your assertion about the Invidious Video Driver Et. Al demonstrates this clearly. Your position seems to indicate that using any non-free software to resolve a problem is somehow wrong. Nothing can be further from the truth. Given two pieces of software X and Y where X is non-free but conforms to the requirements, and Y is free but does not satisfy all requirements, that users should select Y over X, despite the fact that X performs the required job and Y does not. This is where the argument gets it's religious flavor. What other term can I apply to a position which exhorts users to deny the evidence of their senses in the pursuit of some (likely unattainable) Xanadu?
As for those who create software, who has the right to determine how they dispose of their property? Your position on this is merely the antithesis of the Microsoft/SCO position. Nor is your position any more tenable than theirs. Microsoft/SCO assert that free software is somehow immoral, and you assert the opposite. I suggest that neither of your opinions matter a hill of beans.
It is unseemly for anyone who purports to support Free, as in freedom, to seek to villify developers for exercising their freedoms.
The simple fact of the matter is that your extremist position is no more valid than the extremist positions of your antagonists. Like most such positions, it has no place in the real world. In the real world, you seek solutions which work, regardless of their dogmatic purity. Several times in the last century people tried superimposing dogma over reality, by and large those experiments failed. Those that still are with us have had to yield to reality to continue to exist.
There is no one "right" answer in the free v. non-free software debate. The "right" answer is not blanket dogma, but the result of an unbiased analysis of the situation, and a choice based on that analysis and the constraints of the real world we live in, wether you are a producer or a consumer of software.
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
If Linus was never born, eventually, someone else would have written a kernel. It might have come a few years later, and it might not be as good as the linux kernel, but it would come.
If RMS was never born, BSD would be closed/proprietary. So would KDE and gnome wouldn't exist. The GPL wouldn't exist and the face of Free software would be completely different.
"The less a man makes declarative statements, the less he's
apt to look foolish in retrospect." --Quentin Tarantino
Thats true. Ever try to debate religion with an agnostic? it aint easy!
Linus takes this approach with Free Software. Its hard to find fault with anything he says because he says very little. He is a good diplomat; he unifies the clans and presents a pleasant face for bussness.
The only problem with this is there are important things that need to be said! RMS is the one saying them. He gets down and dirty despite it being a position of less dignitty. He is not socially conscious enough to be diplomatic, he is blunt and to the point like a laser and i respect that.
There are 2 types of GNU users:
-Those who use it because they feel its the best tool for the job, the Open Source Movement
-Those who use it because they feel that Freedom is a philosophically superior position, the Free Software Movement
If the situation was reversed, and windows was Free and GNU/linux was closed, I would be a Windows zealot. So, in a way, the license is more important then the code.
Its unfortunate that some newbies have the impresson that he is trying to take credit for "linux". He deserves more credit then he is asking for. Also unfortunate, that its easier to understand Linus' contribution then his, because his is more complex.
He is not trying to "steal linux". He is the granddaddy of us all, and where he leads i will gladly follow.
Today, I can choose to write free software or closed software. It's my choice, and I like it that way. I have nothing against the free software movement, but I disagree with RMS when he suggests that I shouldn't have the freedom to develop software and try to make it a commercial product of it. Why should I only be allowed to market services like installation and support?
Software developers should be like academians? OK. Not all mathematicians share their advances. I know some who develop proprietary models of the stock market for an investment company. It's not for everyone, but shouldn't they have the freedom to choose such a pursuit.
And what makes software so special? Shouldn't hardware be open? Aren't chips mostly designed with source code now? Aren't production costs getting so low that they are essentially commodities like software?