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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?"
When reading any socio-political article, be sure you know who the author works for.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
a break in the church?
I thought it was a Bazaar.
GPL 3: "I've created OSS Lutherans!"
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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Reasoning from analogies is like tying your shoes with laces made of butter.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
We believe that every user of software has four basic rights: the right to ENJOY the software, the right to STUDY how the software works, the right to SHARE the software with others and the right to ADAPT the software to their needs. We believe that these rights spring directly from the existence of software, are fundamental and can never be signed away.
THE RIGHT TO ENJOY
We believe that everyone has the right to use software that they have legitimately acquired, for any purpose: it is for the user to determine whether it is suitable for a particular application. If the supplier of a program were somehow unfairly to impose their will upon the user, perhaps by stipulating that the program should not be used for certain purposes, that would constitute an act of violence.
THE RIGHT TO STUDY
We believe that every user of a program has the right to study how that program works. If the user of a program wishes to replicate a particular piece of functionality from that program, they have the right to examine the program in order to determine how the functionality is performed. Nobody should be forced to re-invent the wheel. The supplier of a program does not have the right to keep secret from any rightful user how the program works: by allowing someone else to use the program, they have invited that person in on the secret.
If the creator of a process wishes to keep secret the details of a process, then that is their prerogative. Effectively, they are providing a service: a customer supplies the materials; the provider of the service takes them away, does something secret, and later returns a finished product to the customer. The customer has certain rights in respect of the transaction, including the right to decline the transaction altogether based upon the level of secrecy expected by the supplier. Where the right to study a program is denied, the user {customer} is expected to provide the supplier with not just the raw materials {input to the program}, but also the resources to carry out the process {computer time and disk space}. This diminishes the quid pro quo, and so is potentially an unfair transaction.
Access to the source code is highly desirable in the exercise of this right.
THE RIGHT TO SHARE
We believe that all the fruits of all human endeavour properly belong to all of humankind.
Software can be shared without being diminished by the act of sharing: if I give a copy of a program to my neighbour, I still have a copy. {Of course, I no longer have the exclusive use of that software. This exclusivity is a form of artificial scarcity.} Nobody has the right to impose their will on my neighbour and say that they should not use a particular program: to do so would be a form of violence.
THE RIGHT TO ADAPT
We believe that every user of a program has the right to adapt that program to their own needs. Nobody should be forced to adapt their method of working to suit the way that someone else believes that the job should be done that would constitute unfairly imposing one's will on another, which is a form of violence.
Access to the source code is highly desirable in the exercise of this right.
DELEGATION OF RIGHTS
We further believe that any user who is not skilled in the art of computer programming, or who simply desires to delegate the task to another, has the right to employ a competent programmer [2] of their choice and whom they trust, to assist them in the exercise of their rights to enjoy, study, share and adapt computer software; and that every competent programmer has the right to run a business based on providing such services in a free market. These services might include independent appraisal of the program to determine its suitability for a particular application {which is contingent upon the right to study}; modification to tailor the program to the customer's working
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Enter Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican priest, who came to power in Florence in 1494. He viewed all of this "humanism" as vanity, turning people's heads away from the word of God and true religion. He took a very severe stand against the new scholarship, culminating in a series of bonfires in the town square, where many great works of art and science were lost. These fires have come to be known as the "Bonfire of the Vanities."
Like Savonarola, Richard Stallman takes a similarly religious stance on software development, rather than a practical one. For Stallman, the concept that software be "free, as in freedom" is the only concern in the creation of software.
At first, I was thinking that Stallman, was the opposite of someone like Savonarola, since he encourages 'freedom' in software creation and not adhering to strict rules or religion. And freedom should include the freedom to create any software you like, totally free or hybrid - though this is not exactly what Stallman envisioned. But of course, all this 'freedom' could lead to something altogether different - 'not free' code and this could not be named 'public.'
I do not see the point of this person's article, except to stir up bad feelings against Stallman. Maybe since the guy works for the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT), he has an agenda to push - creating disdain for the concept of free software? ACT doesn't like OpenOffice, so they probably do not like Stallman either.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
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.
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.
You can check the accurracy of his statements and decide if they are correct.
correct. attempting to invalidate someone's statements by pointing out they have been paid to make them is ad hominem. just because a person, in a worst case scenario, makes a cynical statement merely for personal profit has absolutely no bearing on the truth of that statement whatsoever.
now, having said that, i went and read the article and have come to the conclusion that the real purpotrator of fallicies in this thread is Jonathan Zuck himself. the entire rambling piece is little more than a bag of poor analogies propped up as straw men, miscontextualized quotes and mild ad hominem. this is a gross exercise in rhetoric that brings approprixmately zero new insight to discussion about the future of the gpl.
2 1337 4 u!
Parent post is critical of Google and Apple!
This guy's the limit!
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.
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.