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Being Free is Hard to Do
ValourX writes "What is more important to you -- the four freedoms of Free Software, or the ability to maximize the value of your computer? It's a question that comes up on Slashdot often, but rarely is it so well argued as it is in this NewsForge article. How important are the FSF's four freedoms to you? What are you willing to sacrifice for those freedoms?" NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.
What is more important to you -- the four freedoms of Free Software, or the ability to maximize the value of your computer?
I suppose that depends on how you define "value". Personally, having Free Software and using Free Software has done more to "maximize the value" of my computer far more than anything else I can think of.
SealBeater
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
You don't quite get to the heart of it - if you didn't get paid for it, you couldn't afford to do it.
This is what "Free Software" advocates always fail to realize - in reality there is no such thing, only "Donated Software". And not everyone, no matter how pure their motives or how kind their hearts, can afford to donate their time.
Hey I have an idea - how about someone organizes Macarthur Fellowships for everyone who wants one, not just RMS? Then we could all step aside from economic reality and do what we like...
How important are the FSF's four freedoms to you?
Not that important to be honest. I certainly like the cost aspects of 'free software', but what really concerns me is choice. I try to avoid relying on a product which has a single supplier or is not standards-compliant, even if it does meet the FSF's standards.
"Being Free" is even harder to do if you're studying for a degree at my university. Visual Basic 6, .NET, simple Word documents that are incompatible with OpenOffice and are unavailable in any other format, PowerPoint presentations ... the list just goes on and on.
.NET, where there's an opportunity for them to demonstrate that building applications using .NET allows for potentially cross-platform solutions, they instead teach Windows Forms on MSVC.NET.
Even with things like
I mean, what's the fucking deal? We're students. We're not all living in mummy and daddy's basement, having money freely thrown at us.
Lately, I've had problems that I thought could be solved by software I bought, but it simply let me down. Free as in beer is pretty important not only because of the software which is useful, but because there's no penalty when it's not.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Look up the following: Mplayer, Kaffeine, Xine, LibDVDRead and BZFlag. Not replacements for closed source, really. Far better, IMO. As for ruddy games, that's what the Cube, PS2, Xbox et al are for (yes, in direct contradiction of me mentioning BZFlag. I can be ignorant, too).
You may also want to look at Mozilla, Firefox, Kmail (which, IMO, is the best graphical mail client ever coded), The GIMP, the FreeBSD networking stack and ipfw. These are all bits of open source software that I use on a daily basis that are "in-my-face" and noticeable. They are also the reason I would be lost without my open source OS, along with the myriad other packages running out of sight and mind that keep my computing and networking ticking over without a hitch. Being free hasn't cost me anything, so I guess I'm not qualified to comment...
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
Having done both, I'd disagree with that "always".
Where I currently work, we have strong, well-understood and well-followed processes that result in higher-quality code - source control, design and code reviews, requirements gathering, etc.
Too often in a project "done for love" these things get ignored (yes - that happens very often when done for money too). That's because (a) setting these things takes time away from the fun part of the project and (b) often the person doing the project for love just doesn't understand the need for it or (as in my case) isn't disciplined enough to do it without a framework in place (both process and social).
There are examples and counter-examples all over the place - I'm just saying don't be blind to the idea that work done for pay can be superior.
Sure, I agree whole heartedly that GIMP in no way can compete with Photoshop's features, nor is there any HTML program that can compete with Dreamweaver (maybe HTML-Kit but even that is Windows-only, even though it's free).
:0)
Those aside, I disagree because in most of my day to day activity, free, even open-source programs are not just cheaper (free) but better than the proprietary. Here's a few:
Operating System: BSD and Linux, much better and secure than Windows. More features (bash, gcc), less "features" (Windows Update, Internet Explorer). Hell, even Darwin, an open-source component of a proprietary OS (Mac) is a better kernel than NT.
Word Processing - AbiWord, in my opinion, much better than MS Word. AbiWord in fact looks/acts more like the classic (98, 2000) versions of MS Word than the current MS Words act like.
Music - XMMS (WinAMP on Windows), is there even a comparison to Windows Media Player here?
Video - MPlayer, it even runs without X Window. Can Windows Media Player run video in MS-DOS?
Web Browser - Mozilla FireFox. Internet Exploder doesn't even compare.
Email - Mozilla Thuderbird, Ximian Evolution. Can Outlook, pro or Express, compare to those two??
File Browsing - Nautilus, Konqueror. They crash 100% less of the time that Windows Explorer crashes. And no annoyingly built-in Internet Explorer that's available even if I denied access to iexplore.exe (which I do on spyware-infested clients' computers).
Spreadsheet, Presentation, Other Office - Gnumeric and OpenOffice are both superior to MS Office XP/2003 versions. And like AbiWord, they act more like classic MS Office than current MS Office does. And let's not mention the horrid Mac OS X versions of MS Office.
Instant Messenger - Well, GAIM may be missing some features of proprietary AOL AIM, but one of those features missing is the spyware.
Graphics - Well, mentioned before GIMP's not better than Photoshop... but it does kick Paint Shop Pro's ass. A better all around quick image program than MS Paint too. The price is right too.
Simple Text - Man, even GEdit is superior to MS Notepad.
Programming - Do I even need to compare the long list of free, open-source and standardized Unix/Linux tools to the not-quite-as-affordable MS Visual Studio??
When it comes to Macromedia, I agree with the Dreamweaver argument, and somewhat with Flash (as much as I personally hate FLash, it's here to stay and sometimes it is done elegantly), but I in no way think Fireworks is something to be missed. Everything done in Fireworks can be done with Javascript and HTML coding if you only knew the code. As for FreeHand, well there's Illustrator for Windows/Mac and for Linux I know there's a bunch of free vector graphics programs out there.
Basically, if Linux could just get her own versions of Photoshop and Dreamweaver it'd be all set (and not WINE'd either, real ports so PPC and SPARC Linux users can use it to!!
People tend to forget what launched Mr. Stallman on this road toward software freedom: he wanted to use a laser printer he had on hand with his word processing program. The software didn't have drivers, and as I recall the printer didn't have documentation, either.
Big trees from little acorns grow.
I suppose I'm spoilt by FBSD's ports system where stuff generally works out of the "box" immediately. I hear Debian's apt-get does similar, looking after dependencies automatically, although I would be a bit disappointed with Debian's time-to-update.
;-)
You're right, of course. Folks don't want to spend an hour compiling things, and this is where Big Bill and the TC mob have the upper hand. They just want to slam the DVD in the hole and get the latest drivel on the screen and to hell with privacy and control. Me? I like knowing I'm in control. With FOSS, I am. With XP and Media Player who knows who is pushing the damn buttons? Have you ever run a tcpdump on a router supplying a virgin XP SP2 machine with connectivity? It's all subjective.
In a way, FOSS has forced me to learn a bit more about what I'm using. It now takes me ten minutes to install a fully functional Kaffeine using libxine on a FBSD box. When I first tried with gmplayer on Slackware, it took me two days full-on geeky head-in-the-Makefile messing and that's without getting X working in the first place. My family now happily do all the things they once did on Windows on a FreeBSD desktop system, replicated from my own desktop after each upgrade, which is far easier than keeping XP updated. The subjective here is have I lost or gained? Me? I reckon I've gained. Of course, the AMD64 helps with the wall time figure I just quoted
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
I take issue with the term "free software" being hijacked by what are, quite honestly, free/open source zealots. I'm posting free software on my site and keep getting inquiries about how I dare call it free, since it's not released under the GNU GPL, etc. Kind of insulting I think, because free software does not necessarily mean FOSS, and some people seem to be spitting on what I'm offering them.
I've been interested in free software for a long time -- that is, software I can acquire today and use for the forseeable future without owing anyone money or other compensation, including requiring registration (even if no fee). To me that's the essential quality of free software. If the source code is there, and if modifications are permitted, that's fine of course and is icing on the cake. The BSD license is beautiful.
But I think the time has come for GNU GPL zealots to realize that if they expect the world to call their brand of "free" the only type of "free", this is just being unrealistic and a bit obnoxious. If you are looking for free software, there is tons of it out there. Most of it you can't modify, sorry. Don't like it? Write your own GNU GPL'd free software. And if you are looking for only GNU GPL'd software, then go look for that exclusively, and stop bothering developers who go out of their way to make no-fee software of other (non-GPL) licenses.
Of course I understand the philosophy behind free/open source software (FOSS) and it's very pretty and everything, but it is just one brand of "free".
I develop software for a living. People pay me.
If it was non-free software, people wouldn't pay me because they would feel threatened by a binary only implementation locking them in to a solution they couldn't change.
There are no closed alternatives because it is all custom code.
Free software or no-software. They would rather have free software they paid me to write.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
But are you fine with someone logging in, downloading the source, setting up their own anon cvs, and selling your software for $20.00 in their own nice installer?
The problem is that by selling your software you're setting up an expectation that you'll be able to make money from the fruits of your labour, and may feel hard done by if other people capitalise on your hard work like that.
On the other hand if you gave the software away, there is no incentive for people to get the software from anywhere else, and this situation is unlikely to occur.
Do you mind giving your soft name? I'm curious about what kind of product could be sold in such a way.
and what I'm saying is that people like you are exceptions when it comes to Windows issues. How many other people do you know who haven't been bitten by something in Windows and spent many hours fixing their situation? How often do your friends and relatives come to you for help with that stuff?
I'm not saying GNU/Linux is a magic bullet that never has security or install problems, just that my experience leads me to believe that any talk about Windows being a timesaver in terms of install time or maintenance is mythological. The amount of time spent futzing with systems seems constant, therefore not a reliable indicator of which one to choose.
Which brings us back to applications and freedoms questions.
I do not have a signature
Freedom is the ability to do something without the fear of punishment.
For example, my ability to practise Judiasm in the US without fear of persecution typifies "freedom of religion" in the idealistic sense. But a more devout Jew is not necessilary free in a total sense. Employers might not allow days off for Jewish Holidays, or even more important Friday night/Saturdays for the sabbath. Someone may be ridiculed by a co-worker for wearing a kippah. Of course a more devout Jew (which I'm not) could work for a different employer, and only deal with people who accept the way he dresses. (Doesn't this sound familiar... RMS would say you shouldn't work for an employer who makes your write proprietary software.)
The point here is freedom is not something that one person has, but rather is a state of mind between two or more people. If you are accidentially stuck alone on an island, freedom has no meaning. You may not have the *ability* to leave the island, but freedom itself has no context since you are not dealing with other people.
Now taking the island concept further: if you live on an isolated (from the rest of the world) island with friends and family, you could copy / modify / distribute software all you want if its mutually agreed that that's okay. Many people have considered their personal and other friend's/family's computers to be such an island. With the internet though, you are in full contact at all times with people / government / etc. who are set on punishing for such acts.
So keep in mind, you can fight for freedom all you want from a legalistic / systematic / technical / software-based way, but ultimately, freedom is a mutal agreement between people. Whenever someone is out there who is willing to punish you in some extent for what you are doing, you have a noticable reduction in your freedom. Of course, if value your freedom, you then must fight for it.
The obsession to endow software with the concept of freedom is thus misleading. People have freedom, software does not. So GPL-licensed software is *freedom-enabling* software (to a certain extent). Its using copyright law to prevent other people from punishing you.
So as we look towards a revised GPL 3.0, we should really keep in mind separate ideas of "freedom" and "ability". We need the ability to have source code availible in order to modify/understand software many years down the line (even after threat of copyright expires). Just as we need the freedom to create software without the threat of punishment by frivolous software patents.
When looking at the GPL, thus imagine it in two ways:
1) If I isolated, what abilities does the GPL ensure I still have? (access to source code, ability to modify, ability to copy, etc.)
2) As I deal with other people, what punishments am I trying to prevent? (copyright hoops to jump thru, ridiculous licensing restrictions, patent lawsuits)
...at least in Poland.
Our IRS bastards decided to "calculate the value of Free Software as equal to commercial versions" so if you install free Open Office on free Linux, they want you to pay as much tax for increasing the value of equipment as if you purchased WinXP Pro and MS Office.
With one exception. They are helpless if you actually -paid- for the software. You show them a bill from your newspapers stand where you purchased latest issue of "Linux Plus" gazette for equivalent of 2 euro and got 2 CDs with it, with, say, latest Mandrake release and OpenOffice. You register the 2 euro as your expenses, increase the value of the computer set by 2 euro, pay corresponding tax and give IRS a finger.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
...a particularly effective programmer (I just know a spot of C++) or well-to-do enough to hire one on a whim, freedoms 1 and 3 are not useful to me at their full potential -- but if I ever wanted to improve my programming, an obvious first step would be to browse some free source code -- and I like the indirect benefits of those two freedoms, such as just about everything on Fink being as available on my Macs as it is on my Linux box, thanks to people out there who know what they are doing.
But to me, freedoms zero and two save a lot of headaches. I do not at all like being restricted in terms of how the software can be used, and if I am truly to love my neighbor as myself, I need to be able to legally share software. What really gets under my skin about a lot of free-beer software that isn't free software is limited redistribution; you can't distribute the Flash plugin with an operating system, even though Macromedia always has and barring going out of business likely always will allow anyone to download it.
That being said, as noted earlier I have compromised and mostly use Mac OS X. It's not free in either definition, and neither is Microsoft Office, but OS X has more free components in its base levels than does Windows, at least. Obviously a GNU-based Linux distro or some free version of BSD would be better in some ways, but on the other hand I like the ease of just being able to turn the bloody computer on and have a working Unix-like OS that can run the best office suite in the world (in terms of file compatibility and reliability).
Barring a piece of nonfree software like CrossOver Office (based on Wine much as OS X is based on *BSD) you can't run Office or QuickTime on a Linux system -- these are nigh essential in the modern world, so I might as well use OS X which has native versions of the above.
There is various other nonfree Windows and Mac software I use as well, but I try to use free software when it fills my needs -- but when it does not, ideology takes a back seat to praticality, and in comes proprietary software.
Upon reading the article, I decided that it was based on a faulty premise--- that the choice is between certain features and freedom, and that these are the only two factors that count.
I am a pragmatist, and I will generally use the best tool for the job. That being said, I have found that open source offers me unparalleled capabilities and value at low prices. This is because active open source projects turn these four freedoms into economic advantages. These include:
1) Community support is generally more active, knowledgable and helpful than it is for proprietary software. This means that if I need to pay for support in an emergency I can, but if it is not an emergency, I can get expert asisstance, possibly even from the software authors. This is important because of the freedom to modify, study, and redistribute the software.
2) The software often better fits the community needs because the division between software development and technical support does not generally exist in the open source world (try getting the guy who wrote a snippit of Windows source to fix a bug in it by calling PSS).
3) The lack of the division between product development and technical support also ensures that commonly used open source software will be extremely robust and quite bug-free, and that new bugs will be rapidly fixed.
4) Access to the source code also creates an environment where the value of the option of self-reliance becomes apparent. If I am running SQL-Ledger, for example, and I find a bug, I can report it and wait for the next version, if I have the ability, I can fix it myself, or I can hire a third party to fix it for me. This frees me from worrying about whether Microsoft will fix the latest security advisory, or whether this particular application crash will ever be resolved. A "Can-do" attitude goes a long way.
My mail server runs an Almost-Free/Barely Open Source program called Qmail. I use it because in many ways it is the best tool for what I need it for even though it is not quite Free Software (it is not quite proprietary either). I run PostgreSQL, Linux, OpenOffice, Gnome, Mozilla and others.
At the same time, pretty much all the rest of my software (except a few games) are all open source. It has been an adjustment for my wife, and it was an adjustment for my parents, but as time goes on and they start to see how powerful and capable the open source alternatives are, they don't ever want to go back.
Now regarding your post:
anyone who bitches about his gpl'd program being used by the military to suppress indigenous tribes with fails to appreciate that vital freedom.
Very well said. I have often commented about how I hope that open source brings Iranians, Arabs, and Israelis together to coorperate in improving OpenOffice, KDE, Gnome, etc. Sometimes, you hope that this community can continue to help people build working relationships across deep political, military, and social barriers and perhaps even fuel some understanding of those who would otherwise be enemies.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP