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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.
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Personally, I'm willing to sacrifice the convenience of flash animations, or of photoshop, for a free (as in beer) solution. I'm cheap. The fact that the free (as in beer and in freedom) software often is excellent quality, FreeBSD being my favorite, doesn't hurt either.
However, I can see it being an impediment to adoption of free software because of the sometimes unreasonable demands placed by restrictive licences. The GPL does prevent advances and progress in some cases, such as device drivers, that otherwise would be possible. Same with flash and other non-free media solutions, whether DRM or CSS on DVDs or what have you.
I myself feel however, that sacrificing utility for the benefit of using a free software package, is only rational if the resulting loss in utility is no greater than the benefits. However, it is easy to quantify the benefit of free as in beer software, but harder to economically evalutate the benefits of free as in freedom software.
Honestly, someone once said (+Orc, a very good cracker back in the day) that someone's work that is done for money will always be inferior to the work of someone who does it for love. I personally would rather use the OpenBSD team's ssh than a commercial one, because I know that the people behind it are doing it because they believe in it, and are going to do their best to put out a superior product, rather than being more concerned for the buck, not the software.
SealBeater
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
He doesn't even try to actually make a connection between the apparent premise and the apparent conclusion.
Direct quotes:
But he doesn't say WHY anyone with these high-moral ideals should let go of them.
Again, why not? Because it makes him uncomfortable to be asked to make "unfavorable sacrifices"?
False dichotomy. There isn't an either/or except in your premise that you wouldn't have written software were it to be free.
I too write software for a living. People pay me to do it. It's also free software - because it falls below the value line for closed source software for my employer [along with at least 95% of all software written in the company].
I have also written software which has nothing to do with my employer. I do it for the love of it. There are many others in the world with a similar view. I would write software even if I didn't get paid to do it - sure, I'd need another job to keep body and soul together, but I'd still hack.
Anyway, why wouldn't people pay you if it was free software - do you only code for people who sell the software afterwards as proprietary? Most software (95%+) is generated for internal use - so it generally makes sense to release it as free software. Because then it reduces the amount of code the purchaser needs for any new products. The more free code there is generally, the cheaper software production gets in total.
--Ng
You seem to have excluded the set of available answers in the postamble to your questions. A bit like saying "What's the capital of France?" and then saying "Please don't say Paris".
There are many top flight coders who work for companies like IBM, HP, Sun, etc. (eg, Andrew Tridgell, Jeremy Allison, and so on). They all get paid to write F/OSS. But you don't have to be an uber-coder to get into that game. If you work for a reasonable enlightened company [yes, there are a few], they can see that most of the software generated internally has no value as a sales proposition. So get them to release it as free software. Explain that it means that the cost of developing new software will drop, because you can now use and redistribute the work of all the other coders.
Bang - suddenly you're developing OSS for a living. Maybe you do helpdesk other parts of the time, or are a tech support guy. So what? It's still code. The more there is of it, the more it'll get used.
Hell, even the stuff which I've written and been ashamed of is useful - because it let's people know how not to do something!
--Ng
The goal of the GPL is to make all software free.
The goal of the BSD license is to make all software better.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.