Slashdot Mirror
FSF, Political Activism or Crossing the Line?
orbitor writes to tell us InfoWorld's Neil McAllister is calling into question some of the recent decisions by the Free Software Foundation. From the article: "All the more reason to be disappointed by the FSF's recent, regrettable spiral into misplaced neo-political activism, far removed from its own stated first principles. In particular, the FSF's moralistic opposition to DRM (digital rights management) technologies, which first manifested itself in early drafts of Version 3 of the GPL (Gnu General Public License), seems now to have been elevated to the point of evangelical dogma."
Maybe this is because I don't fully understand all the FSF does, but it seems to me what really advances the cause of free software is free software that WORKS. The Linux kernel, GNU tools etc... all do WAY more to advance the idea of free software than any amount of political advocacy.
What if next time RMS decides (say under the pretence of intellectual freedom or some crap like that) he doesn't like country music and that free software mustn't be used in any part of the process of creating or playing country music? Who'd be there to stop him? Or how?
I fear that this kind of pseudo-activism is not going to help anybody but will set back the free software movement by years. Just after "the masses" have at least started accepting and/or understanding the free software spirit instead of mistaking it for communistic nonsense of an old, befuddled hippie.
And weren't there statements by Linus or someone else that the Linux kernel as we know it will never be released under the GPLv3? Doesn't surprise me.
And which parallel universe did you crawl out of?
1. You can buy DRM music or not buy DRM music. You have a choice and know what you are buying.
2. Artists can distribute music themselves or through a label. They have a choice.
3. If the artists distribute it themselves, they can protect it with DRM or not protect it with DRM.
4. If the artist goes with a label, the label can choose to protect the music with drm or not protect it with drm
Nowhere is there force and nowhere is there fraud.
Furthermore, artists don't HAVE to sign with a label. Especially with the Internet, they can distribute music without one. If an artist chooses to sign with a label and the label insists on DRM, that is a choice made in a free market.
YOUR argument is that the market is not free because YOU want to buy/download non-drm music. That is not the definition of a free market. A free market is a market without an artificial price mechanism, and a market that is free from force and fraud. Here's a reasonably good wiki article on the subject.
Economics is junk science. I hesitate to use that phrase because it has the word science in it. Economics is just voodoo. Has anything come out of this so called experiments? Have they proven anything yet? Can they boldly make predictions that when a country blows its surplus, spend hundreds of billions on an unproductive war, runs insane trade deficits, runs insane budget deficits, expands the size of the government the results will be a stonger dollar, a stronger stock market, higher wages and lower unemployment?
Cos that's what's happened despite all the so called economic theories.
evil is as evil does
I think you misunderstand the term "scientific study". But that's okay, most do. I'm also not sure I agree with your reading of history.
I think you are not realizing that everyone who has ever accomplished any social change has had a group of people who would claim they are "ranting, raving and demonizing those who agree with them", from Jesus to Gandhi to Malcom X. I'm not saying that everyone who rants and raves makes positive social change, and yes persuasion is important too, but you (or anyone) complaining about an activist being abrasive is certainly not reason enough they stop. If it were, there wouldn't be much happening.
But it sounds like we live in different worlds, you and I. Enjoy yours.
Cheers.
Unfortunately, you're wrong.
Cheers.