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GPL 3 As Bonfire of the Vanities
morganew writes "Jonathan Zuck has written a CNET Op-ed stating that the GPL 3 is about returning the flock to the faith, and is reminiscent of Savonarola's 'Bonfire of the Vanities', urging true believers to burn things that took their eyes off God. From Article: 'The commercial humanists such as Lawrence Lessig with his Creative Commons initiative have turned away from the Old Testament, and the GPL 3.0 license is a call to the faithful to reject these vanities'. Given the reaction by Linus Torvalds and nearly all the OSS business community to the GPL 3, are we going to see a break in the church?"
Why is it that with every new or good thing someone should come, make a "cause" out of it, preferably a religion or something equally mindless, based on faith and not reason, and then wave banners of the newfound dogma in our faces while stuffing his proverbial coffers with capital.
I say its technology, and any selfrighteous sermonizing jackass that wants to make religious wars based on it can go and do it with himself, for all I care.
That has got to be the most strangled and embarrasing analogy I have ever heard. It makes me feel all dirty - like I'm in some kind of cult. Lighten up!
I meta-moderate because I care.
Aren`t we, technology advocates, above this kind of faithfull belive, and use more rational tougths and critical tougths?
I sure know that, sometimes, only very few sometimes, almost never, we the "techs" tend to be fanatics...
But this is getting creepy, GPL3 is just a license, to protect information, over one simple filosophical belive: Free of information.
Hell, reading about flocks, faith, damn... what`s next? To adore the holy chip of Intel?
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Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Many in the commercial software community call open vs. closed source a religious debate. They argue they're on the pragmatic side. The open source community often tries to portray their side as practical, not idealistic. Framing this in religious tones in not going to help. It only stokes the fires and brings this article's author more readers. I see this as just media sensationalism with some facts thrown in.
Developers: We can use your help.
Yes, it does matter, because *I* want to know *WHO* is making the opinion, and what agenda might be satisfied by publishing the opinion. This way, I can decide which elements I can reasonably trust on faith, and which elements may have ulterior motives for pomulgating.
It doesn't necessarily invalidate his opinion (and I never said it did -- that would be argument ad hominem) but it should cast a certain amount of doubt as to whether he reached those opinions through research, or is just parroting his employers opinions.
Who would you trust more : a NASA scientist who warned you about global warning, or an Exxon scientist who told you that global warming was a myth? Why?
Tell me : if you were on trial, would you like the witnesses against you to have been paid by the prosecution?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
It's not ad hominem to point out that someone may have been paid to hold a certain opinion
Just so long as you're not going on to say that what that person's saying should be ignored because of it. He could still be right, even if he's saying something in his employer's best interest.
Besides, in this case, he appears to be arguing against something that would benefit Microsoft.
Richard Stallman correctly predicted many of the ways in which Big Corporations and Big Brother will use DRM (also known as Digital Restrictions Management, Treacherous Computing, or Handcuffware) to enslave people. Just read the essay he wrote, titled "Can you trust your computer?" and look at some of the recent Slashdot stories and you'll see that he's been all along.
I have nothing but respect for Stallman's courage to take on the powerful and wealthy interests that want to subjugate the populace. This is the time to show our gratitude for his uncompromising ideals by donating to the Free Software Foundation (which Richard Stallman founded and leads) and to the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.
That would be a valid point if the author had constructed a coherent, fact-based argument. But in fact, the article is little more than a list of unsupported assertions about other peoples motives.
And the natural reaction to such an article is to ask "Why would someone write such a thing?"
And the answer is invariably the same : "Money".
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
The article casts Stallman as impractical. However the freedoms in the GPL are of practical importance. One might for example be using GPL software in a large organistion to get away from per seat licencing, using the freedom to share the software with multiple employees. If some "pragmatism" finds a way round GPL 2 so that you have to pay per seat for the link to the website that enables the software, that is not very practical for the users.
If you are going to do what the article does and merely assert that freedom is in opposition to practicality, you are saying nothing at all.
I find your arguments distrubing. You say he does not have the "right" to ask for part of your paycheck. Nor does he have the "right" to copy "your" software. I say the former is very different from the latter. In the latter case, you are asking him to give up some of his freedom: the freedom to copy. His copying does not directly affect you in any way. In the former case, he is asking something of you that does directly affect you. You have no right to demand that others limit their freedom for the mere claim that you "own" the "right" to copy. Now, it so happens that we as a society have decided that allowing you to do so temporarily will be beneficial for the promotion of the progress of science and the useful arts. But there is nothing inherent that says you should be able to limit his freedom in this way as his actions do not affect you. So, please, throw out the "I own it so he can't copy it" argument. Instead, argue that society should agree to prevent him fom copying. And it better have a damn good reason to do so.
Ah, if only every argument was a purely deductive proof that we could analyze as such. Then a person's bias would have little effect on the efficay of their arguments. However, there are 2 major problems. First, most arguments only contain bits of induction in a much larger argument that has deductive and inductive parts (usually some crap too). Instead of "proving" anything, they person making the argument will supply a bunch of evidence. Bias often causes people to highlight the "evidence" in their favor, and brush aside evidence not in their favor. So when you hear an argument from a person with a strong agenda, you really should stop to think about what counter evidence has been overlooked or brushed aside. The second problem affects even the purely deductive kind of argument that might bring Aristotle himself to orgasm. This is that we must still evaluate the premises of any argument, and decide if they are reasonable. Not knowing everything in the universe, people really on expert opinion in many cases to determine whether these premises are sound. So credability becomes very important. Thus, in addition to what is being said, who is saying it does matter. The court system certainly recognizes this with the use of "expert witnesses". You can never logically just brush something off as false because it was said by a certain person, just as being hypocritical doesn't make you wrong. But unless the argument made is a 100% deductive proof with very simple assumptions, then the "who" as well as the "what" is important in evaluating the argument.