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Stallman Unsure Whether Firefox Is Truly Free

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the more-left-than-left dept.

Slatterz writes "Among the theories Stallman bandies about in this Q&A are: Facebook may not share private data with the CIA, Firefox isn't really 'free software,' and his dreams of a day where nobody is involved in developing or promoting proprietary software. Agree or disagree?"

7 of 905 comments (clear)

  1. Pragmatism or idealism...? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm sure we're going to get debates about pragmatism versus idealism. Isn't idealism just pragmatism with an eye to the future? Both want to get the best. The pragmatist wants the best of what is available now, the idealist is prepared to sacrifice now for the best that it can be in the future.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
    1. Re:Pragmatism or idealism...? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Isn't idealism just pragmatism with an eye to the future?

      Pretty much, yes. RMS's point - with which I agree entirely - is that it's impractical to give control of your data to someone else. If you go with proprietary software, that's exactly what you're doing. The other party may very well treat you respectfully, and it may even be in their best business interest to do so, but that says nothing about whether they'll stay in business or whether the giant corporation buying them will be so customer-oriented.

      People talk about using proprietary solutions for their practicality. That might be true in the extreme short term, but in the long term that just doesn't make sense. Idealism is pragmatism. The two are inseparable.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  2. Facebook and the CIA by chrb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If the CIA needed access to the Facebook databases and were unable to get it (either through social, legal or technical measures), I would consider that to be a massive display of incompetence. If the world's most highly funded spying agency isn't capable of accessing Facebook accounts from a cooperative company, then it (the CIA) should be shut down, since it's clearly going to be of no use at all against more determined opponents.

    1. Re:Facebook and the CIA by darkmeridian · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah. My favorite spy-story of all time has to be CryptoAG and the NSA. CryptoAG is a Swiss company that manufactures secure communication products, and has been doing so since World War II. Suspicious characters use their services. But it was compromised from the start by the US Government. The story goes that the head of the NSA back in the fifties visits CryptoAG and says something like, "The US Government spends MILLIONS on secure communication software every year. How would you like to earn some of that business? And in a completely unrelated topic, it would sure be nice if we had some way to listen in on what those Communists are yammering on about so we could prevent them from taking over the world, wouldn't it?"

      Yeah. CryptoAG products, trusted by dictators, business, and terrorists alike, was compromised for over three decades until the Iranian intelligence agency figured out someone was listening to their conversations and busted CryptoAG.

      --
      A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
  3. Re:People scoffed at my contention... by chrb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No he isn't. He appears to support the idea of paid software development and paid services, but insists that the users of that developed software should have the right to copy, modify and redistribute it.

    Anyway, I agree with him. Having worked for 2 years with a contracting company that was almost 100% Linux and open source, I can say that the open source software development and services arena is very profitable. We never had a customer complain that the solution we delivered was either based on open source, or that our changes would be open source due to the GPL or whatever. What customers cared about was a) did it work and b) did it not crash (the two are somewhat related). As long as we checked those boxes, they were very happy - you'd be surprised at the number of contractors who try to deliver overly fancy solutions but fail on those two basic points.

    More software developers should ask themselves "What's the worst that could happen if my customers could modify and redistribute this software"? For proprietary software, it means you can no longer hold customers to ransom and insist on yearly revenue generating "updates". For developers who get paid for hours worked doing actual development and support, this is no problem. I prefer the latter - getting paid for actual work just seems more honest.

  4. Re:well, this part makes me wonder if I can share by chrb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's necessary for there to be an economic incentive to develop software. Nobody is going to donate millions of man-hours to write the software for the F-22 out of the goodness of their heart. Nobody is going to donate the man-hours to write the software for my insurance agency or hospital.

    Nobody is asking them to. The developers that wrote the F22/insurance/hospital software would still get paid, because the software has to actually be written, and they'll get paid for modifications and support too. What they can't do is get their customer reliant on some bit of closed software, and then jack up the cost of that software a couple of years down the line when replacing it with something else is almost impossible.

    What's the worst that could happen if hospitals actually used open source systems? That open standards would be developed and utilised, and that information interchange between systems would be many times easier? That patients might have some degree of control over their own data? That vendor lock-in, the type leading to the failure of the "£50 billion, largest civilian IT programme in the entire history of the world" might be avoided? I could support that.

  5. Firefox could stand to lose Stallman's blessing by cj1127 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sit a potential user down and get them to look at GNU. Shitty logo, meaningless name, and stereotyped militant following. Now get them to look at anything to do with Microsoft. Clear cut image, a household name before it was a household name, and a stereotyped idiot following. People seeing this would rather commission a team of programmers to create them an app that already exists in Open Source form that they never knew existed, because apart from the odd exception of people like Red Hat, Ubuntu et al, nobody in the open source community is willing to regard people used to closed-source software as anything else than the unwashed masses waiting for enlightenment. The people that make the decisions don't give a shit whether a new OS/software package/etc has a particular philosophy associated with it, as is evident from a lot of companies being "liberal" with site licences they actually paid for. What does matter is the snobbish attitude shown off by people like Stallman towards people who have a need for software, be it open or closed source, and the stereotypes they generate that have harmed the open source community.