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Behind the Doors of the Free Software Foundation

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the what-would-you-say-ya-do-here dept.

Linux.com has an interesting look at the inner workings of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). "The purpose of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is probably obvious from its name -- but what does promoting free software mean in terms of everyday activity? Examining the roles of the organization shows how complex the FSF's advocacy role has become. It also reveals the range of services available to the free software community, and helps to explain how such a small group has had such a major influence on computer technology. As a 501(c)3 charity in the United States, the FSF is run by a board of directors. The current board includes FSF founder and president Richard M. Stallman and long-term member Henry Poole, but, in the last few years, new faces have appeared on the board."

10 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Thanks! by just_another_sean · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As a user of Free Software for about 10 years now I would just like to say that I really appreciate the efforts of the FSF. No matter how much RMS is bashed and doubted he sticks to his ethics and invariably the projections he makes seem to come true to at least some extent.

    Long live the FSF.

    --
    Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
    1. Re:Thanks! by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As a user of Free Software for about 10 years now I would just like to say that I really appreciate the efforts of the FSF. No matter how much RMS is bashed and doubted he sticks to his ethics and invariably the projections he makes seem to come true to at least some extent.

      Long live the FSF.

      I disagree with many of RMS's positions, but he has been vital to the open source cause. Sometimes we need extremists, and he is a good one. :)

  2. Importance of FSF by nobodylocalhost · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is hard to grasp the importance of FSF, because one cannot see it until it is taken away. Free software is a good way to improve society as a whole just like the concept of a wheel, People use those free software all the time just like how wheels are incorporated in most of our technologies. Can anyone imagine what are the ramifications of a tightly controlled licensing scheme on wheel technology based fully on economics?

    --
    Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
  3. Interesting comment below the article: by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nice way to gloss over the fact that the FSF has essentially failed to grasp the point that the only way free software will be perceived as a valid replacement for proprietary software is if it is a 1:1 replacement. gNewSense's latest release should prove that FOSS developer's time would be better spent at improving their software rather than wasting their time with the FSF. Especially considering that the FSF is run in a non-democratic manner.

    Thankfully other organizations exist that realize this and don't attempt to have us all waste time as the defective by design campaign does.

    While I don't agree with this comment in all aspects, I do believe an important part of promoting free software is to give incentives to free software coders, especially those in charge of replacing popular proprietary products that still don't have a free-software equivalent.

  4. Not this old debate again. by spun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Free means different things to different people. The GPL provides more freedom to users by requiring coders to give back to the community. The MIT/X11/BSD style license provides more freedom to coders, because they don't have to give back to the community.

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    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    1. Re:Not this old debate again. by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Free means different things to different people. The GPL provides more freedom to users by requiring coders to give back to the community. The MIT/X11/BSD style license provides more freedom to coders, because they don't have to give back to the community.

      A perfect example for this is when the Cedega project promised to give back to the community their advances with DirectX under WINE. Fortunately (for them), WINE was licensed under the X11 license. Guess what happened? Nothing, that's what happened! Thanks to that, DirectX work under WINE froze for several years, leaving users pissed off and having to purchase Cedega for something they were supposed to enjoy for free in the first place.

      And for this reason, I'm glad that Stallman kicked Miguel out of the FSF Board.

    2. Re:Not this old debate again. by Timothy+Brownawell · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Isn't that more of a "dishonest asshole" or "naive fool" issue than a licensing issue? You also can't just say that with GPL, wine would obviously have gotten all of the cedega work, you also have to account for the (probably very hard to quantify) possibility that cedega wouldn't have existed at all...

    3. Re:Not this old debate again. by TheSunborn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And let's just look at the alternative here.

      If Cedega gave all the code back to wine, then wine would be as good as Cedega, and nobody would buy Cedega. Cedega would thus close down which would
      leaving DirectX work under WINE frozen for several years.

      I fail to se how that is a better solution.

  5. Not Obvious by fm6 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The purpose of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is probably obvious from its name...

    That's a pretty clueless statement. If it were obvious, then we wouldn't have to make the Beer/Speech distinction every time we used the word.

    One reason this is unclear: to many of us, it's not at all clear that whether you have the right to hack somebody else's code is a first amendment issue. In a technical sense, I suppose it is. But that's the same technical sense that Comcast uses when they assert their right to give us 500 channels of crap. Even if legally valid, it's hard to get worked up over it.

    The main contribution of the FSF to posterity has been to create the Open Source movement, which has proven to be a superior model for large-scale collaboration than the old standards committees it replaced. This was obvious to me the first time I compared early prototype of open source desktops like KDE and GNOME to their committee-managed predecessors, such as (the late, unlamented) CDE. Even early betas of the OS desktops had more functionality than CDE, which had been under development for many years.

    But does FSF boast about their role in inventing Open Source? They do not. They consider OS, arguably their biggest accomplishment, as a distraction. That's because the FSF is about changing all the intellectual property rules as it relates to software, not about better development models. And IMHO, they don't really have a lot to show for 25 years of attacks on that particular windmill.

  6. I disagree with the whole framework by Mateo_LeFou · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Having principles is not extreme. It's actually not really possible *not to have them.

    Abandoning your principles when they're inconvenient is not "moderate".

    If you claim to have principle X, and abandon it when it's inconvenient, your *actual principle is "convenience", and it coincided with principle X for awhile.

    X doesn't suddenly become extreme because it's not your principle.

    --
    My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love