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Stallman Unsure Whether Firefox Is Truly Free
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?"
It was free!
Agree or disagree?
I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
He is sure Firefox was not free.
He is knows the problems have been corrected.
He is not sure right now because he uses lynx.
He in fact says:
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.
...that Stallman wasn't out to destroy the software industry as we know it. Now, his own words condemn him.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
some of what he is smoking....
and his dreams of a day where nobody is involved in developing or promoting proprietary software
I mean, I'm all about open source but nobody developing or promoting proprietary software? What about the business world and the wide variety of custom made software tailored to specific business segments? What about gaming?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
No.
So, stfu.
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.
I think he should switch to Opera or Safari.
Wow, Stallman's done a lot of great things but he's marginalizing himself with these statements that are borderline silly.
It's similar those ridiculous things that hippies would say in the sixties like "I dream of a world where everyone takes LSD" or "drinks the kool-aid" and then everyone will form a Terra-wide circle and sing "age of aquarius".
The idea is out of touch, his hair is out of touch, he really needs a healthy dose of reality.
If Stallman says he isn't sure whether or not Firefox is free software, I'll just play it safe and surf the web with HURD.
Facebook may not share private data to the CIA
There's private data on Facebook? I thought the whole point of sites like this was to enable teenagers and not-quite-grown-ups to plaster all nitty gritty details of their lives on the internet in unreadable blue-on-pink pages.
Firefox isn't really "free software"
He's not the only one. But as always, normal people don't really care if free software is 100% kosher as long as it works well for them.
and his dreams of a day where nobody is involved in developing or promoting proprietary software.
People who have trade secrets to hide will develop proprietary software, that's a fact of life. Video card manufacturers for instance may not want to reveal the underlying structure of their hardware through the driver code. I fail to see how this is morally wrong.
It's a royal pain in the ass to end users who may be forced into a particular OS because of feeble driver support, but the motives of the driver maker is understandable.
Agree or disagree?
Yes.
Maybe people should stop drooling over every little thing the experts claim and make their own decisions using their own thoughts. Read what someone says, then make a decision about whether it is an opinion piece or they have some facts that are useful.
I realize his opinion was an 'I'm not sure' opinion rather than what the OP stated, but still. I use Firefox, it's free, and it does what I want. The other conditions he puts on it are irrelevant to me. If it stops being free (as in beer, not freedom) or doesn't do what I want, I'll go elsewhere.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Where people like Stallman stop begrudging others the right to make their own products and sell them. It's one thing to be critical of the fact that software is so much more restricted than say, a car or a new TV because of the contract they're able to get away. It's quite another to act like someone's rights are being violated because they have to buy a new copy of a program for each computer they want to run it on.
If corporations and other profit-seeking entities were not involved, free and open source software wouldn't have gotten anywhere. One inconvenient little fact that people like Stallman fail to understand is that consulting is no way to support a business that **makes** things. I doubt RedHat would be successful compared to Microsoft if they had to shoulder most of the R&D costs themselves.
You make ask yourself "why does this matter?" Because it turns the role of corporations in the economy on its head. They go from being the primary drivers of production, to being the primary beneficiaries of production because they are the ones making the few consulting bucks off of others' production of OSS code that can't be sold off as individual licenses due to it being open source.
I happen to like and support a lot of open source development, but having worked as a contractor since graduating college, I can't even imagine how fucked up our industry would be if it were run by consulting firms. They are some of the cheapest, most short-term thinking businesses in this country.
I'd wish he'd drop dead but that may just make him a bigger "hero" for more RMS goodness see: http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/openbsd-misc/2007/12/10/486713 *sigh* The guy is nothing short of mental
It is not. The Firefox logo is not free. Thus, any software that includes that logo is non-free also, and Debian developers know it very well
MOD THE CHILD UP!
All of the code is open source and tri-licenced. Do with it what you want.
Say about him what you want.... He does stand for his principles. That said: I never managed to get Debian Etch to run on my EEE 701 4G. The wired network card isn't even supported. :-(
Okay, many people have accused him of this, but reading his response how he came about to his free software ideals really doesn't strike me that he quite understands why software costs money. Kind of like how warez kiddies I knew in highschool didn't quite understand why those pirated copies of Photoshop weren't free to begin with. Coding on a PDP-10 in the 80's is great ... but now we're at an age where thousands upon thousands of software developers have to make a living *somehow.* Calling commercially closed source developed software a social problem is extreme. I couldn't imagine an age of software development where I could buy something, freely replicate it and expect the application developer to make money on it in other ways than dragging their heels on supporting it. How does he expect software developers to make a living?!
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
that is all
It seams as though Stallman is becoming as relevant to the F/OSS community as Jesse Jackson is to the Black Community.
In other words, does anyone actually give a shit what this man says?
I have no personal evidence that he is currently free, thus he falls into the same category for me as Firefox does for him.
More disturbing (from TFA)...
I wonder which of these is true:
Richard Stallman has had his stay in the limelight. The world moved on.
Remember, there are no stupid questions. But there are a lot of inquisitive idiots.
Because honestly... who does? Mozilla is free. Saying otherwise is pure pedantry.
No, they aren't, because the Firefox name and logo are registered and well-defended trademarks, so you can't modify them, etc. Iceweasel is Free, though.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Stallman's definition of "free": stuff he likes. His definition of "not free": stuff he doesn't like.
If firefox isn't free enough whats stopping him from making his own free browser?
You know what? So what if firefox is not completely free?
It is a superior piece of software - I would use it in preference of IE even if it were completely proprietary.
I would give Opera a more serious consideration if that were the case though.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
You can always replace the logos and distribute the same software you got, so, it is not Firefox that isn't free, it's the logos. There are packages where everything is free, but on Firefox, just the software is free.
That, of course, doesn't make the problem less anoying to distro makers.
Rethinking email
Yes, I agree, Richard Stallman dreams of a day where nobody is involved in developing or promoting proprietary software.
The -- ahem -- "idealist" says "these are my principles, I don't violate them".
The "pragmatist" says "I just want this done by Friday and will violate my principles for the sake of that."
At first glance, it looks like the second person values action and results more than principles. But that's actually not the case: She just has a different principle: expedience, "getting it done by Friday", and values this more than her other principles.
Thought experiment: make it so that the thing won't be finished on Friday unless the pragmatist kills someone. You will discover a closeted (horror!) *idealist. In most cases, the thing won't be done on Friday.
To sum up: this is a false dichotomy, and a tiresome one.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Stallman was not talking about cost in $$$ or effort. He was talking about "freedom" (free as in speech). He believes that there must be some piece of code in Firefox that is tied into some corporate governance which does not allow people to take, use, modify, distribute, etc, etc. It's really a sorry thing. Back in the day when FOSS was getting started, people like Stallman were critical. The community needed people like him to ensure that FOSS started free and stayed free. It kept the corporate money mongers at bay and made sure free software (as in speech) had a place to grow and mature. Every time there was an encroachment by somebody trying to corrupt that, the GPL and other such licenses were there to push back. Unfortunately, it seems that lately Stallman and his crew have gone beyond simply "protecting the idea" and have moved into fanaticism. This could be potentially dangerous for the community. While many view Stallman as a crackpot, he really has been critical to the open source community. Sometimes, an idea needs an empassioned person to keep the fire alive for the good of all. But if he really does go further around the bend and really does become a raving lunatic, conspiracy theorist, a true wackpot: then he will simply be ignored, even by his own FOSS community. Then he will be irrelevant, and the staunch support of the open source ideal will be marginalized, and then FOSS will have no protectorate. Stallman is hurting his own cause, which does make me concerned for the community as a whole.
I doubt he means in house use only software. I really doubt he cares if that is open source. I do not think it even matters. For all intents and purposes to the world the software does not exist.
I think his concern about everything being open source is in reference to software available to the general public by any means. I seriously doubt game companies would give out source simply because staying ahead is coming up with tricks/effects your competitors don't have.
while his idea sounds cool the problem I see is providing incentive for people to do something. Who is going to write tax software, let alone stand behind it, and just provide source to where any competitor could get hints on how to do it? I know, extreme example, but writing good software does not require it to be open source or even have source code available. It is their work and they should be allowed to distribute it as they see fit. To that end Stallman is just the reverse of some corporate types - in that he is just as selfish as they are.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I really don't get it. He's ideologies are extremist and not realistic for what most of us call the "real world". Said real world is most definitely both free and not free. Air, for example, is free. The home in which you live, is not, although I'm sure RMS would argue that THAT should be free too.
What a flipping wacko.
And anyway, what does he exactly mean by "free" and how does it affect me? Why should I care what he thinks?
We need to get this communistic line of thinking out of our software development, people.
What kind of freedom do I lose by using a GNU browser? Does one exist?
Oh yeah there is Konqueror. It requires me uninstall Windows Vista, give up on ms office, wow, and many apps and use an os that is not supported fully by my laptop. I lose wifi, sound, lan, and 3d graphics. I would have to purchase an expensive mobile wifi card by sprint or verizon which is against the spirit of free software.
Oh that is right its my fault for buying a laptop that is not fully supported, but Linux or Gnu Turd is the saint and why is not everyone using? I do not have time nor should the average user care to look up every device in every computer for excellent linux driver support. Most stores wont give out all the hardware detail anyway for things like the 5-1 card reader. THe average Joe will just shake his head and prefer Windows after hearing about hardware support and blaming the user for problems with GNU/Linux.
Linux is great in the server room but not for the average Joe for the reasons I dscribe above. Installing Linux or other GNU software does lose time and freedom for people who want to get work done and use their equipment. Windows already comes with the price so they might as well use it. Install and work and have no problems.
After all of this I then end up with a browser that sucks and can't support sites like my bank and my schools outlook program.
Time is money. If free as in GNU is inferior and costs time then its not worth the free price.
Also in business I need things done and I do not care about freedom. Free things cost money to implement and support and I am willing to pay $$$ off of my employers dime if it helps us achieve the required results. RMS does not understand economics 101.
Firefox is both opensource and free to download and offers little drawbacks. In my opinion its freerer than the GNU alternatives.
I will take firefox with its source code anyday.
Also RMS should take an economics 101 class. Money is freedom as it gives incentives for people to work and offers rewards and excellent products and support.
http://saveie6.com/
That, of course, doesn't make the problem less anoying to distro makers
Pot? Hello, Kettle! The distro makers are all doing the same thing. You can take the source code to Fedora Core and make your own Fedora-like distro, but you can't use the the trademark 'Fedora Core' nor can you use the Fedora logo or any other trademarks.
My blog
So software written in C# or VB is not free software?
How about applications written in Java before it was open source.
Heck say you used cc vs. gcc to compile your code.
Using non free modules is just like using a non-free compiler as you are building in code that you may not have the full source with.
I myself am a larger support in Open Specification vs. Open Source. (Yes you can have Open Source code which isn't Open Specification) as Open Specification is real free speech as you explain how the application works. Vs. just giving them the source no matter how sloppy or cryptic or incorporating platform particular commands (Eg. Saving Floats in binary format of the particular hardware, Different platforms and hardware will save this data in different format). An Open spec tells the person what is happening and allows you to create a new app that can do the same thing or better or communicate with the app.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Back in the day when FOSS was getting started, people like Stallman were critical. The community needed people like him to ensure that FOSS started free and stayed free.
Back in the day when FOSS was getting started, Richard Stallman was still working on Emacs and the Free Software Foundation wasn't even a twinkle in his eye. It wasn't yet called any single name, let alone "free software" or "open source software", but it was incredibly common and was being promoted and distributed without restrictions by companies like AT&T (the Software Tools virtual operating system grew out of code published in Software Tools) as well as individuals and user groups like DECUS and FIG.
You can always replace the logos and distribute the same software you got, so, it is not Firefox that isn't free, it's the logos.
Well technically : the logos and the "FireFox" name itself. But the code is still free.
There are packages where everything is free, but on Firefox, just the software is free.
I think that's why the parent mentionned IceWeasel.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I hear RMS is adding a clause whereby anyone using GPLv4 software, no matter how indirectly, implicitly agrees to forfeit their right to use or develop any piece of software that is not also covered by the GPLv4. Long live Freedom!
why does trackback make firefox non-free? by the logic stallman uses, cedega running on any linux based os makes linux non-free
portfolio
Well, you better erase that Linux distro off your hard drive if you'll only use software that doesn't use trademarked names. No, no, you can't use Debian either, because the name Linux is trademarked, too.
My blog
Richard, you're rewriting history. The licenses of open source software are more often derived from sources like the BSD and MIT licnses, which are at least as old as the GPL.
Whether or not software is free or not free, we have more or less redistribution of wealth, more free trade or less free trade, more environmental protections or less, is not nearly as important as whether or not this nation is producing leaders sufficient to the tasks before it.
Right now, I'd say the answer is NO.
On paper, American managers and CEOs and political leaders, particularly the Bush administration, ought to have succeeding wildly.
BushCo, for all of its "revolutionary Republican" posturing, is a product of the system of education and nation building. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, all of them are top school graduates. All the generals that came before Petreaus also have distinguished resumes.
The CEOs that run American companies, financial institutions, etc, all have similarly stellar pedigrees.
Yet, the government is a mess and the private sector is in tatters. Our financial institutions are burned from bad loans and our manufacturing is gutted from bad products. A country with the supposedly best educational system in the world ought to have produced a ruling class capable of winning wars quickly, balancing the budget, and making use of the largest pool of private and public capital ever assembled to expand its businesses and not lose them to third world countries.
Yet, this nation has utterly failed.
And, on the left, we can see too that the leadership is similarly anemic. Our arts are in a constant spiral downward, free speech now means whether or not you can say the F- bomb on public TV. Are there any musicians today, who we will listen to in 100 years? Are you are there any books today, that will be read in 100 years? Can we really say the writing behind a movie made today is the equal of the writing of a movie made before?
This isn't about politics any more. This is a failure of our institutions to produce decent leaders, or leaders capable of making the right decision. Why this is the case, and how do we fix that, how do we fix a culture that has failed, is really the national debate, and every other issue almost doesn't even matter.
This is my sig.
Well, this little blurb convinces me that RMS is now firmly in the grasp of the last throes of DMAAS (Doesn't Matter At All Syndrome).
FTFA: "and his dreams of a day where nobody is involved in developing or promoting proprietary software"
I guess RMS has never realized that one of the reasons that Linux(the kernel) has been so successful, and Hurd such a failure, is the plethora of companies that have been willing to provide support (direct, indirect, or simply documentation) to Linux to increase its features to work with their hardware. I think it has something to do with the mascots. At least Tux looks professional.
Thanks for insulting the paid and unpaid programmers who made it all work, RMS.
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.
You can't, however, use the trade secret of your source code (I would be flabbergasted if you could write software for the F22 and keep it secret, and the MoD have no need to share a GPL change for their purpose, so what's the difference? None.) to overcome your incapability.
In the 1990s, there was a philosophical split in the free software community between those of us who wanted freedom and those who only appreciated the practical by-products of free software.
In the 1980s there was a philosophical split in the free software community between those of us who wanted to write and share good code, and those who wanted to make a political movement out of it. The split was created by the GNU Manifesto, long before one group of people in the 1990s decided to pull together in response to the Free Software Foundation's politicization of the community.
GPL killed this scheme.
As much as William Henry G3 dreamed to monopolize it all, let Richard be the counterweight dream to free it all.
I understand: the language you speak is owned by no one ( French exempt), the symbols of writing ( though not all fonts ) are free, the rules of mathematics are free -
and so should all cultural techniques be free which are to be used by the majority of the population.
Therefore SW should be free!
There will always be some fields who are special so that nobody is willing to invest programming time in it. There commercial software is right.
You want it - you get it by inserting the proper amount of coins!
I realize this headline is trying to make an issue out of something that isn't there. But I can't help but pose the question: If someone is so obsessed with his own orthodoxy that no practical wide release can meet his standards, do we really care what he says anymore?
---don't make me break out my red pen.
How does he expect software developers to make a living?!
Simply by getting paid to write code.
As they've always been.
What Stallman wants to change is that as much as possible of this code, once written, should get distributed :
1. with its source.
2. with authorisation to play around with said source
As an example, a huge amount of the contributions to the Linux kernel (which is GPLv2) are done by professional developers paid by IBM, Novell, RedHat, etc.
RMS' dreams are to extend this model to as much companies as possible.
Of course then there's the problem that not all companies are going to hire developers to write GPL code, simply because the some companies count on making money by selling said software.
(Unlike, for example, companies whose main income is done by selling hardware, services. Or academia who are state-sponsored. etc.)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Stallman Unsure Whether Firefox Is Truly Free
In related news: I'm Unsure Whether Stallman is Truly Sane.
#DeleteChrome
The EeePC comes with a variant of the GNU/Linux operating system, but it's a very bad one: it contains lots of non-free software. In fact, the machine demands that the user agree to an EULA before it will even start up. I received an EeePC as a gift, but I could not run it because my conscience will not let me agree to the EULA. Finally, I asked someone to install a free GNU/Linux distro so the machine could be used.
Does anyone else find it strange that he couldn't (or wouldn't) install Linux on the machine by himself? Why exactly does he need a friend to do that?
Stallman has been around since 1980. I hope there isn't that much to discuss.
I mean seriously haven't we all heard it.
Let's talk about weather chevy or ford is better while we are at it.
My opinion is simple enough. I don't oppose his ideas. I don't see him forcing anyone else do to anything. So the compitition looks good to me. If you want to use a service provided , you use it under the circumstances provided or don't use it. That seems simple enough to me. Use free software, or open source software, or role you own.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
The -- ahem -- "idealist" says "these are my principles, I don't violate them".
The "pragmatist" says "I just want this done by Friday and will violate my principles for the sake of that."
Could not one say a pragmatist is one who has a set of "ideals" but realizes that list may contain mutually exclusive goals?
If the general masses don't have to pay for it, then according to the majority it's "free". Stallman always has and always will argue about the true definition and scope of "freedom" and this case is no exception. I'd be inclined to say !news, both for the true freedom of FF and for RMS's opinion about it, but then again FF is a really tough one to call...
/* No Comment */
...whether Nelson Mandela is truly free
In most cases, the thing won't be done on Friday.
And in the case of some CEO, someone will be found fucking killed by some chair.
Plus it won't be done on Friday, until it's been redefined as "Friday... next year".
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Your answers:
"Can I use GPL-covered editors such as GNU Emacs to develop non-free programs? Can I use GPL-covered tools such as GCC to compile them?
Yes, because the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Using them does not place any restrictions, legally, on the license you use for your code.
Some programs copy parts of themselves into the output for technical reasons - for example, Bison copies a standard parser program into its output file. In such cases, the copied text in the output is covered by the same license that covers it in the source code. Meanwhile, the part of the output which is derived from the program's input inherits the copyright status of the input.
As it happens, Bison can also be used to develop non-free programs. This is because we decided to explicitly permit the use of the Bison standard parser program in Bison output files without restriction. We made the decision because there were other tools comparable to Bison which already permitted use for non-free programs."
No, it isn't. It is generally accepted that the copyright of user generated output of a program is controlled by that user. Some rare (inevitably proprietary) licenses do claim copyright over output of the program, but no open source license does that.
If I have 2 terminals open next to each other, and personally type GPL source code line by line making changes as I see fit (mostly renaming variables), can I redistribute my copy using a different license?
You speak London? I speak London very best.
This interview:
Copyright © 2008 vnunet.com
If he was such a "free" messiah, then he wouldn't have agreed to do this interview.
I don't respond to AC's.
There is one thing about RMS that constantly amazes me. He is always on the right side of things. It usually takes several years before people start to understand what he is saying, but eventually everyone comes around.
The biggest misunderstanding that people have about Stallman's positions is the assumed fundamental disconnect between "capitalism" and "free software." He's not a communist, but he values his freedom above profit. If anything, that is historically a very "American" position.
He has no problem with making money, but he has a problem relinquishing his ownership rights and control over his property (his computer) to some other entity (proprietary software).
It is a reasonable and rational position, especially since Microsoft, Apple, and so many other companies are in bed with MPIAA, RIAA, etc. Web sites collect so much data about us. Are we really free? Is our own computer really our own property?
In many ways, and this my sound radical, the right to create proprietary software is similar to the right to own slaves. Look at proprietary software in voting machines! Is there a better example of the destruction of human rights and democracy by proprietary software?
I understand the desire to sell your product and keep the source code a secret, but no other aspect of human technology works that way. Every electronic component is documented. Every part in a car is documented. Every building is built with approved materials and is inspected. Every switch, nail, screw, and device is documented and open to public inspection. Why is not software? Why do we allow large corporations to sell us software that does not necessarily operate in our best interests? Do you think DRM is in any way beneficial to you a stake holder? Do you think it is right that YOUR DVD player will *not* let you skip a commercial?
The freedom to restrict another's freedom is not freedom, it is tyranny. There may be financial gain in such actions, but is freedom something that we fight for only to sell to the highest bidder?
on and on the list goes. Those that feel they don't belong hang on to something that makes them feel they do. Is a case study in Psychology 101 classes. Psst. DON'T drink the kool-aid.
Well technically you can't have a GPL Java, c# or VB app, because you can only link GPL apps with closed libraries if they ship with the OS.
Of course nobody takes it that far, except maybe lawyers.
You're referring to an issue that was solved earlier by altering the User-Agent string to reflect that it was a Debian fork, and you didn't mention that the main reason for this was back-porting later Firefox security fixes to older Firefox versions. The issue at hand is that the Firefox logo has a branding license (see grandparent post) which is incompatible with Free Software licenses and thus it cannot be wholly released as Free Software. (If I recall correctly, the branding license is more clearly incompatible in small part due a policy change on these forks, amplifying the logo issue that had been largely ignored up until that point).
This issue surfaces with Debian because they, like Stallman (but unlike Shuttleworth for Ubuntu), will not make compromises in their definition of Free Software. The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) are not compatible with the Firefox branding licenses, and that will not change in the future (DFSG is also not compatible with the GFDLv2, another non-code license, which causes similar issues).
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Get over it. The trademark isn't free. The source code is or else there would be no Iceweasel.
Iceweasel must be the worst name EVER for what is basically a name and graphics fork.
You know I really liked RMS ideals but they will never work. FOSS doesn't fill every software need and I don't think it ever will. I use FOSS, I contribute code, and I tell others about it but I don't think it will replace closed source.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
With Internet Explorer each installation has a unique ID that can be queried by the website being visited, thus enabling tracking more reliable than simple IP logging. Does anyone know if FireFox has a similar unique ID for each installation that can be obtained by visited websites? The product is "free" but it comes at a price of privacy.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
This has been discussed many, many times here. Sharing ideas is different from sharing physical goods. Making a copy doesn't take the original away from its owner.
My question is the inverse. I know you can use GPL tools to make non GPL applications.
But using a NON GPL Compiler vs. a non GPL Library really isn't that different. If you have taken a look at .NET part of the language is using a huge set of close source libraries that get compiled into the code. The same thing with Java. .NET code that does a function as part of the language but it is not ok for me to install a closed source library that can do the same thing for a different language. The issue of licenses it is possible for such license to be set for the compiler.
So it is OK write
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
IMHO...
1. Those who think that the CIA cannot get any piece of information they want are being rather ignorant as to the real power given to these agencies. Do you actually think half of what the CIA or NSA is capable of doing is even declassified for consumption by the general masses?
2. Firefox is free. Free to download, install and use. Download and have fun, and quit digging for pointless loopholes.
3. I wonder how he would feel if we removed every royalty from his "proprietary" writings, never printed another hardcopy anywhere, and made them all available for free download?
I do use and promote open-source, but our economy is riding south in a handbasket as it is without the "help" of yet one more person ranting for a free e-lunch. Use FOSS where you can, but pay for what proves to be valuable to you and your business. It benefits everyone in the end.
Stallman says " I hope to see the day when nobody is employed in developing or promoting proprietary software."
Cloud cuckoo land so far as the embedded software community is concerned.
At the extreme, the military are never going to open-source, say, missile guidance systems. The chance that the software structure or some embedded fact (e.g. that the range storage can only reach 1000 km) will leak some militarily significant fact.
But at a lower level, imagine someone open sources an Anti-lock Breaking System, and the system is involved in an accident in which it might, or might not, in its original or modified form, have contributed to an accident. Yes, I know that most open-source licenses carry complete disclaimers. The cost of defending the, when people's children are in the morgue is too high for a company to consider. US tort law, allowing claims against any party with money, is just too wide ranging.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Firefox might not be free (as in speech) but it's free (as in beer) and that's good enough for most everyone I know.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Like CentOS is already doing.
I think he is kinda taking it too far. Everything should have moderation and he sounds like he is fuming over Asus adding non free components (which ALL computer companies do) to their linux OS. Just like with a windows PC if you don't like the stupid toolbars and trial crapware than remove them but he should commend them for not forcing people to buy windows.
There is a need for proprietary software and you people have to be realistic. We can't just go all the sudden to 100% free software because that meaning people working for free to make all that software. There are a lot of people who donate to free software and many people who contribute to free software but you can't expect every single programmer to work for free.
Just my 2 cents.
I just believe there is two sides to everything and having radical views are never good.
Moreover the mozdev web site seems to run on non-GPL software... even proprietary! Maybe it's time to switch to AGPLv3?
As Mateo_LeFou says below, it's somewhat of a false dichotomy - even the pragmatists have certain bedrock principles; his example being "No Murdering".
Idealism has its place, but idealists run into the problem of sometimes having pie-in-the-sky visions: ideas that won't come about today, and may not even come about in the future. So, by refusing to budge, they sometimes get no "payoff" rather than a delayed payoff.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
...Stallman definitely sure that water, soap and razors are not free. Thus, he holds to his principles, and refuses to use them.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
A friend of mine hosted Stallman when he was speaking at our school. Among the other bizarre things that my friend witnessed Stallman doing, Stallman doesn't use _any_ browser. Instead, he sends a mail message to himself, his procmail settings then download the page, the page is converted to a PDF and the page is mailed back to him.
Software was also not the driving force in the industry back then. Hardware was. Being able to copyright your software is an unqualified good because it gives you the ability to do things like release it under the GPL or sell licenses to others at a reasonable price. Good for Gates for helping us here.
That was then, this is now. One of the benefits of having copyrights on this stuff is that any inventor can use international copyright law against people who do seriously uncool things with their software, like if someone decided to fork Python or the Linux kernel into a proprietary derivative. The law did actually adapt to changing times because now that the industry is worth a lot more, there is a lot more incentive to screw over everyone, especially open source coders who often make good code, but lack a huge corporate backer.
Early gains are frequently very, very quickly made in any area of research or industry. This is because they're new and there is so much to learn and work on. As they mature, there is less of a frontier for them to explore. In a century, we'll probably be having the same arguments about genetic engineering because by then, genetics will probably be as understood as any other field like programming or mechanical engineering.
If you cannot see the advantage of being able to know something labelled "Fedora Core" is actually *the* Fedora Core, well, then I have some designer clothes I think you might be interested in, at an amazingly low price...
Names and Brand Identity: Intellectual Property Everyone believes in.
I'm pretty annoyed by mindless rejection of everything Intellectual Property-related because some parts of the law aren't equitable, reasonable or decent. There's one poster to Slashdot (rms, is that you?) who goes by the name IDontBelieveInImaginaryProperty, with a link to EndSoftwarePatents.net. This individual has a name and an identity which aren't physical property (they may be correlated to a human being or a small shell script somewhere), but they're very much intellectual property. What would rms do if I passed myself off as rms, or supplied copies of any GNU software that was inferior product masquerading as the original?
From TFA:
I certainly won't use [proprietary software] myself. I launched the GNU Project in 1983 specifically to make it possible to get away from proprietary software. Now that I have escaped, I am not going back. I hope to see the day when nobody is employed in developing or promoting proprietary software.
Could you please point out the part where RMS wants to ban all proprietary software?
But if you have ever listen to his speeches he is not at all open to ideas other then his own.
Does that make him a bad person? Honestly, the guy is entitled to his opinions!
I don't know about anyone else - but so far I haven't paid for downloading the latest FF. Well besides the fact I'm running on a Windows pc.
Get up!
Stallman is useful. He's probably the most successful anarchist of all time. Anarchists are usually destructive or a joke, but Stallman figured out how to make anarchy work. His big success was in devising the GPL, which was a major breakthrough in contract and copyright law. If all we had were BSD-type license or dedication into the public domain, we'd have too many forks of the code, as with, well, Unix. The GPL maintains focus, because you can't add something and declare the result proprietary. That was clever.
Is the EEEpc coming preloaded with crapware, like Dell and HP products? If so, I take his point.
I'm not a Stallman fan personally; I've met him. Despite that, it's good that he's around.
You are talking about cost of the sandwich, which Stallman does not care much about, he cares about the freedom of the man to get a recipe for a sandwich and modify it as he sees fit for his needs, and forbidding him to sell sandwiches without providing both the original recipe and his own modifications.
Sorry to be pedantic, but if you are going to use any allegories you have to use them correctly, not an incorrect interpretation of the actual stand of the individual in question.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
*whoosh*
Without RMS always being so far out there to the extreme, the "comfortable middle ground" most of us live in would be too close to the other end of the extreme.
Zealot: "a fanatic or an extreme enthusiast"
Fanatic: "A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause." or "a person whose enthusiasm for something, esp. a political or religious cause, is extreme"
Stallaman is an extreme enthusiast for user's freedoms, if you want to call that enthusiasm extreme, that is your prerogative.
But Stallaman has enough long reasoned philosophy about software licensing (which is what the GPL is all about) which many people, including for profit corporations, are embracing, that to claim he is delusional ( delusion: "a mistaken idea or belief") is at least highly debatable.
As for the childish meme that Stallman promotes any kind of communist or socialist ideology, well, it is frankly a baseless, tired statement.
Multiple for profit companies use GPLed software to make business and people like you, forget that humans are not rewarded only by money, also the GPL is based on a conceit that does not exist in communist societies: copyright (which is only understandable in a capitalist society, where the state is not automatic owner of whatever the populace produces).
So to insinuate Stallman uses a capitalist conceit because his love of communism is frankly a catch 22 that people spreading this nonsense need to explain satisfactorily.
But go on, keep trying to spread nonsense with no base in reality, we will gladly keep correcting you.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
> iceweasel was kind of a dick move from developers that didn't want to live up to the same expectations as everybody else.
You are missing the point as to who the 'dick' here is. It's Moz Corp. Take the .src.rpm for firefox from Fedora and issue an rpm --rebuild on it. You can't redistribute the result of that command without entering into a trademark license agreement with Moz Corp. That isn't true for any other package in the Fedora repos, because for any other package such a requirement would be considered a bug. Any other package would get renamed or removed to comply with their requirement that all packages be redistributable, modifiable and not legally encumbered such that Fedora has a special right to distribute. It is way past time for Firefox to go from any free distribution. Debian finally did the Iceweasel rename, now it is Fedora's turn to do the right thing. RedHat can certainly keep the branded version in RHEL but if Fedora is going to stick to it's Free Software only stance it must rename.
Democrat delenda est
My honest opinion, too, in the hope it is not utterly drowned in this flood of honest opinions.
1.
Anyone with a knowledge of the evolutionary process, especially as given in the natural history, would instinctively seek to regard a phenomenon as a form of life. Any form of life has that potency to survive and evolve, possibly suffering along the way but eventually possessing the qualities to outlive the current craze and ultimately thrive afterwards. Such was the case of mammals being bullied by XXL reptiles; such, I tend to think, was the way of early Christians in the Roman Empire.
What was it mammals possessed that allowed them to survive? Homeothermy, wool, milk, brain and crepuscular vision; whatever it was, it was not useful in fighting back. Whatever it was, it wasn't useful in the short run. Strong belief not drawn from any material token.
Stallman's propounded "free software" being the case in hand, is likewise not limited to 'here and now'. Many flashy things of early 80's from proprietary software are long dead and forgotten: emacs and, especially, gcc have ever been gaining vitality.
Stallman is right in dismissing commercial value as a principal condition of any piece of software to exist. One does not need to be a chosen one to go hacking; granted, a certain degree of talent is necessary, but the amount every male has inborn, would by and large suffice. And, to put the same differently, a piece of software will survive not because it is patentable and patented and protected, but because it is a *good* piece of software. Short-term exigencies and profitability don't matter here.
2.
Yet I believe open source, as a form of life, is even more fit. Accessory to the nat. hist. criterion are the notion of enthropy in physics, and the notion of parsimony in discourse.
Open source puts the fitness for life down solely to the programmer, with his hackerdom vocation as the primary reason. Open source does away not only with commercial viability of a project, but also with moral attributes Stallman so vehemently stands by. This take on things is simpler, more elegant, more economical in means of subsistence. Both Stallman and Torvalds have that nearly subliminal clarity and succinctness in expression--and even here Torvalds outdoes RMS. Both live to support a grand cause; and yet watching Linus' speak is so gratifying in that it poses an example that there *are* causes to live for, and not just run round peddling whatever is selling to make ends meet.
Stallman encourages people to sell their products.
... in so few sentences?
Who is forcing you to do anything?
Release your software in any way you wish, what Stallman and any proponents of FOSS say is that releasing non FOSS software is counter-productive for users of that software and for society as a whole, since cultural advancement is hindered.
If you don't like that message so be it, but equating âproposing* that people, *freely*, release their software for the benefit of society to some kind of enforcement is most disingenuous.
Now, if what you want is to do whatever you want with software that was not produced by you, well, we all want to be free loaders, but in most civilized societies we have reached the conclussion that such state of affairs would not be a good idea, so copyright is put in place to fend off freeloaders.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
if Richard Stallman should remain free...
Blame copyright for that problem, not GPL.
If you can combine works under different licenses and then pick which one you want to obey, then everything can be copied freely: Windows has BSD code in it, so no copyright there!!!!
But COPYRIGHT LAW says that in a merged product you MUST be able to obey all the clauses of all licenses.
So if you don't like it, change copyright.
Linux is trademarked
Even better, so is Debian.
iceweasel was kind of a dick move from developers that didn't want to live up to the same expectations as everybody else
That wizzing sound you just heard was the point going by directly overhead.
Can I make up my own distro and call it Debian?
I guess that's not Free either.
But what about if the new ideas are rubbish?
Since such a judgement is completely subjective, by holding that "closed mindness" against somebody what you are really saying is that you don't agree with him, but your wording masks a genuine disagreement with an alleged fault in the character of your opposite.
Which is of course a fallacious way of conduct a discussion.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
whatever I want it to mean and nothing else.
When did Stallman send the GPL Ninjas to beat you up for not releasing your code under the GPL?
I think most people whining about this are like little children in the playground: they see that all the clever children are playing with a better toy but insist to play with the rubbish one they have, and latter claim they are being bullied by the other children ....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
No, CentOS is based on the SRPMs for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (which is in turn based on various versions of Fedora core), not on Fedora Core itself.
My blog
> Well, you better erase that Linux distro off your hard drive if you'll only use software that doesn't use trademarked names.
It is a matter of how the trademark is licensed. I can rebuild everything in a typical Linux distro and redistribute it. Yes the Debian or Fedora trademarks are an exception but there is an easy method provided to deal with that because modification and redistribution is encouraged. And note how the whole respin scene IS being brought into the fold in both projects and the trademark issues are being dealt with. The single exception is Firefox. Rebuild the unmodified sources and you have a package that can't be redistributed without entering into a legal agreement with Moz Corp. See the difference?
Rebuild, modify an rebuild, do whatever you want within reason and you can still redistribute the Linux kernel package and still cann it "Linux", you can even use the mods with the Penguin on the boot screen.
Rebuild Samba and you can redistribute it. Add some patch ya got from the Internet (perhaps a security patch) and yup, you can still redistribute it and even call it Samba.
Just rebuild Firefox and you can't call it Firefox anymore. All binary copies of Firefox must originate from a source under contractual control of Moz Corp. Not Free.
Democrat delenda est
You missed my point entirely. %s/Fedora Core/Firefox//g and then you'll get it.
My blog
A very big company (well, it is smaller today), does this.
They fix FOSS software for their own purposes, but understanding that it is in their own interest that the software keeps improving, release the changes back to the community (note they would not be obliged, since they are not distributing the software, only use it internally).
Here is what Stallman said:
So RMS pointed out, correctly, that Firefox contained non-free software before, and he believes, but isn't certain, that the problem has been corrected. Lesson: when a Slashdot article seems to suggest that someone is bat shit crazy, even someone you do not like, follow the link and read the original article before commenting. Slashdot employees who are actually getting paid don't do this, which leads me to wonder if the policy is to deliberately stir up controversy so there will be more page views and ad revenue.
That such thing is moderated as insightful is frankly tasteless.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Thus the reason he is labeled a ZEALOT.
The man is delusional and just needs to go visit any communist/socialist society and live in it to discover that his ideals just don't work because human nature will not allow it.
Well, I think there's an interesting question in there:
material communism seems not to work, but what about when we're talking about information? Information which can be shared at virtually no cost, and which (in the form of computer programs) can be complex, practically useful, and still trivial to copy and share - is "communism" when applied to such a substantially non-material "property" still impractical? Or do the different rules at play make it work?
That said, I would say RMS pushes things a bit too far... Hoping for a day when free software totally supplants commercial software, for instance. If technology stopped moving forward, if the capabilities of the machines stopped dramatically increasing so quickly and the concepts of what people need from the software running on them stabilized, then I could see the opportunities for proprietary software diminishing significantly. If machines could be made intelligent enough to program themselves, the same condition could occur. In either case, the system would then presumably be accessible enough that snybody who wanted the machine to do something a little differently would be able to make it happen - and the issue of whether that change is shared or not would be pretty meaningless. In the current world I don't see that working - things still change too quickly in the world of computers for hobby development to catch up, let alone take over.
To me, the best role of free software is to raise the baseline standard for computing. That is, you have these commercial developers creating new software that pushes the limits of what you can do with your machine - and meanwhile you have free software which raises the standard for what users can do without those applications. Low-cost or no-cost software with lower capabilities than commercial applications helps to raise users' expectations, which in turn acts as another force driving innovation in the high-end stuff. If this no-cost software is "Free Software" in the FSF sense, then it raises the baseline for programmers as well, because they can access and reuse the source code from the application to push the baseline further.
Bow-ties are cool.
Can we please move on?
Most people using Linux receive it in a machine with it installed already.
Can we please move on to discuss relevant, up to date issues?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Honestly, installing an OS is an almost janitorial task nowadays in any organization ....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Huh?
..what adheres to the rules that he publishes, whatever the version they are at today (GPL 3.0 ?) which I lost track of. He is a purist for the sake of being purist not helping anyone else. He wants his name to be in the limelight all the time. What he says has no merit as far as I am concerned. So, who gives a flipping f*** ?
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
Stallman has never defended piracy...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
They said there were WMDs in Iraq.
They have no idea were Osama bin Laden is.
Thy allowed the murderers of 9-11 to commit their atrocities.
It seems only people like you and me, who are easily identifiable, are at any danger of being caught by the CIA if needed, any other people should not really worry much.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
fire -> ice
fox -> weasel
It's a very clever name.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Is the military distributing its software?
If they aren't then all this discussion does not concern them. As a matter of fact the UK government protested strenuously about not having access to the source code of the software in some US made fighter jets, the problem was solved to the *client's* satisfaction (the agreement was undisclosed, but if the UK government was demanding access I can't imagine they did not get it in some way).
As for your second example, I don't know what you are smoking. I still have to see any software that accepts any liability of any kind, proprietary or not, in any case litigators would go after the person that packaged the full solution and offered it commercially, I fail so see how any developers, who most likely would have put disclaimers on their software, would be liable about how a third party decide to use their software...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The BSD sandwich will let you sell a whole new sandwich based on the old recipe if you so choose. It's more freedom and a tastier sandwich.
Stallman has, in fact, done a few days of "real" work in his life. At least I assume so, since he wrote original versions of emacs and gcc.
Give the guy a break. He fights for what he believes in. And if he *wasn't* doing that for the past 20 years, then the software landscape today would be a hell of a lot more proprietary and annoying than it actually turned out to be.
You don't have to agree with his views, but at least respect the man for consistently being right. Why not go flame someone else.
I don't use his 'free' source code because of it's restrictive license.
I do use open source code with less restrictive licensing.
And, I do use proprietary and 'free' binary applications, but don't modify the source.
Just read the article. Generally, he makes sense and I'm happy he started this FSF thing because I'm using a lot of the software today and I like his philosophical ideas.
I think I understand his criticism of open source software. It's not just limited to software development. Corporations use certain dirty tricks to coerce power away from people when they can't have absolute control. From that perspective, I can see rhyme and reason in his philosophy.
In any case, reading a lot of the comments, I'm seeing that people are calling him crazy and irrelevant, etc., but it's kind of hard to avoid that his ideals have led to significant progressive changes in the freedom to use and develop software. I, along with millions benefit from this change. This process needs to continue.
Doubtless, no one is "right" about everything all the time, so that's why, you know, we all have brains to think with. Regardless of whether one agrees with him or not, he does lay out some very well thought out ideas. Personally, I think trashing a person because you don't agree with him is a waste of everyone's time. I'd rather read some real criticisms and perspectives on his philosophy.
Did anyone else notice that every single stallman interview is basically the same ?
If it does, why have you or anyone else not bothered to look in the source code for it? You're obviously fine with this "privacy cost" if you can't even be bothered to do that.
I don't think the GPL actually defines the term "link". Java and C# don't really link in the sense in which C does. In fact, I've long had the impression that when the GPL was framed Stallman was thinking only of C programming.
I dream of the day where Stallman shuts the hell up
and now we must all ruminate ad infinitum on his true divine meaning so that it may guide us in our respective technological paths.
or, its a fat antiestablishmentarian with a beard and a flute whos been kicked off planes, pisses off BSD devs, and makes us all generally uncomfortable.
heres some other tripe that stallman approves of:
Contribute funds to avoid a ban on selling hallucinogenic mushrooms in the Netherlands.
Boycott Coca Cola Company for using paramilitaries to murder union organizers.
how is this guy still relevant?
Good people go to bed earlier.
Yup..you are FREE to use any license you want. That's YOUR choice. But what if somebody takes your BSD licensed code and puts it under the GPL (they CAN do that your license allows it)?
Still want to go with the BSD license?
In a sense, you're not really "giving" people your code unless it's with no strings attached. I respect that - being willing to give your code to someone under terms that let them do almost anything - even if it's something you don't like. In that sense using a very permissive license is very generous.
What I appreciate about the GPL, though, is that its restrictions create a structure which encourages the long-term growth of the program. People looking to take advantage of the code written for the project are expected to grant their modifications back under the same license, so they could be incorporated into the original project. And if the original project team drops the project to do other things, then anyone who attempts to resume that work would be doing it under the GPL as well. Of course, one could rely on the culture of the userbase to achieve the same ends (free software users use free software, so if they work on the project they're likely to let it remain free software) - having that as a condition of the license just means that people outside that culture are expected to contribute back, as well.
Personally when I set out to write a free program my goal is to have it be a lasting gift to the free software community - specifically, I want people to be able to use it and modify it as necessary, and if the project survives beyond my own involvement in it, I want its nature as a free program to remain unchanged. But if the license were to interfere with the intended use of the application then I think it would make sense to use something more permissive. Or if I felt the project was trivial enough that I really don't care what people do with it, and my priority in giving it away is really just to make sure it's useful to someone - in that case a more permissive license would make sense, too.
Bow-ties are cool.
If you have nothing to lose by open-sourcing
But you might very easily have something to lose - marketshare or profits or something - it might give competitors an advantage that you want to keep for yourself.
If your company writes something that really streamlines your operation, you don't want to give it to the competition to help them out.
Why, yes I have been touched by His noodly appendage. And I plan to sue.
You could hand Stallman a can of beer, gratis, and he'd say it wasn't free because it had a trademark on the label and the recipe wasn't open-source.
I bet he'd drink it, though.
But Stallman doesn't like the "Open-source" terminology or the philosophy that drives it!
Bow-ties are cool.
But you may not change the proprietary parts of the BSD sandwich, so if you don't like it you are fucked. Better to start with a GPL sandwich and be free to change as you see fit.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
No, Stallman does not use Lynx. In fact, he doesn't surf the web at all.
Stallman wants to live his life as if he's still living in a 1970s computer lab. He's out of touch, disgusting to look at, and pragmatically WRONG when you step back from his rhetoric.
I don't.
Hello? Mods on crack!
iceweasel was kind of a dick move from developers that didn't want to live up to the same expectations as everybody else.
I'm not certain why you think it's a "dick move" to do something that you're allowed to do. But I AM certain that they are living up EXACTLY to the same expectations as everyone else.
Oh! I can field this one... As someone who once made a fairly shitty, uncourteous move myself...
See, back in the late 90s I made a fork of the game XEvil. XEvil v1 was GPL'ed, while XEvil v2 was not. I forked a late version of v1 and called it "XEvil Mutant Strain" - added some characters and weapons and stuff, put my name on it, etc. It even wound up on a CD release of Linux games.
So why was this a shitty thing to do? Basically, during all this, I wasn't thinking in terms of how to be courteous to the original author of the software. In the case of Mutant Strain it was like "I'm gonna fork this 'cause I don't approve of your new license" - followed by a lot of shoddy work, and promotion of said shoddy work, using the name XEvil and without being courteous or thankful for the original code I was working from. I didn't do enough to distinguish my project as a fork and I didn't do enough to recognize the original author.
So I can appreciate the perspective from which someone says it was a shitty move to call the fork IceWeasel. I never really thought of it like that before - mostly I just thought the name choice was kind of funnny. But the fact that the name choice is kind of a parody (especially given all the name changes Firefox was subject to early on) is kind of ungrateful in a way - almost like the people who chose the name wanted to express spite toward the Firefox folks for creating the condition in which they couldn't change the source to fit their distribution and still call it Firefox. I think a more appropriate attitude is continuing thanks for making Firefox source free in the first place, even if there are uncomfortable limitations.
Bow-ties are cool.
Just because I post on Slashdot, does not mean I have the know-how to dig through the source code to see if there is a unique identifier... The only reason I know about the IE identifier is because I have seen examples of it.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
"The biggest misunderstanding that people have about Stallman's positions is the assumed fundamental disconnect between "capitalism" and "free software." He's not a communist, but he values his freedom above profit. If anything, that is historically a very "American" position."
Stallman does not believe in the concept of contracts. More specifically, he believes that everyone must follow a contractual structure that he has dictated. If I want to hire someone to deliver a binary to me, under the Stallman regime I can't. Today I can. Exactly how that is "freedom" is lost on me.
"He has no problem with making money, but he has a problem relinquishing his ownership rights and control over his property (his computer) to some other entity (proprietary software)."
Noone forces him to. He has a choice - again, his position is all about denying everyone else that choice.
Oh, and comparing having the option of buying closed-source software to "having the right to own slaves" is just vulgar and wrong. If you can't figure out why yourself, you are probably beyond help.
would appreciate if Stallmann would just shut up.
His penetrant narrow-mindedness about commercial software is just annoying. A solid mixture of open-source and properitary software is the solution. Not everything can be free, not everything must be free
You actually can redistribute the Debian logo.
All business models are just that - models. They are there to give structure to effort within the framework of what's possible at a particular time.
The model doesn't create the reality, it must reflect it or utterly fail. If the underlying reality changes, the model must change or die. Those who adapt can prosper, and those that don't will ultimately fade away into irrelevance.
If you get the chance you should watch the Adam Curtis documentary series "The Trap: Whatever Happened to our Dreams of Freedom". You may think it to be some form of Communist propaganda (from the BBC no less!) but it does a good job highlighting how nobody has a monopoly on the idea of freedom. Free is such a loaded word.
Stallman does believe in restricting the freedom of rightsholders to own and exploit copyrighted works. His views are a little more nuanced than you make out as he actually believes there should be a 3 tier copyright system that ranges from technical manuals and software tools that should be broadly available along the lines of the GFDL and GPL to entertainment works that should have pretty much the same copyright protection as at the moment, just with shorter terms.
So yes, freedom at the cost of freedom, although in this case I'd say it's a good thing.
Nick
or you could try the slashdot metaphor sandwich , its tough and chewy , mostly tastless apart from the odd grain of truth and guaranteed to generate an near fatal excess of bile.
[site]
Open source is really starting to get on my nerves. I'm really getting tired of these losers who have produced nothing but 3rd rate junkware with bad documentation at best, telling the rest of us that somehow we're all bad people if we charge money for the fruits of our labor.
I used to like Stallman but now he's becoming to nazi'ish about open source. To be honest, Firefox is one of the very few open source software packages out there that actually works well. Who cares about the license! Its a free download, it works well and that's that!
When Richard Stallman produces software that "everyday people" actually use, without having to go to a news group and ask questions, then he can open his mouth.
One of the things he argues for is that copyrighted works that function as tools should have GPL like freedoms. So yes, he does argue that developers should loose freedom to exploit their work in the way they see fit because he's got his eye on a much bigger freedom.
You can agree or disagree if that's a good thing but he is honest about what he believes and why he believes it.
Nick
Government oriented solutions such as the NHS and electronic voting examples given earlier, should be completely GPL, and make use of open standards to support maximum interoperability, this would allow development funded by the first world governments to be charitably donated to 3rd-world/emerging countries.
The governments should not be profit focussed, so this should not cause a conflict of interest.
Consultancies / companies and contractors that are hired to implement the vision should be made aware of this fact upfront and these conditions should be acceptable, as they are not being asked to donate their own brainchild, merely the fruits of their labour for which they should be remunerated fairly.
However, ethical difficulties may arise when a re-usable eureka component solution is discovered based on high-level vague requirements, but falls within scope of the overall program. Custom written top-secret military programs however are clearly a different case, this software represents an advantage to the government over potential enemies, and as such should not be open-source and definately not GPL. If the development is outsourced, one would expect the government to get the source and the vendor to destroy their copy once the contract is handed-over.
Within business, the advantage would need to be measured on a case by case basis, similar to normal build or buy evaluations. What is the business advantage offered by the particular software? Is it a core differentiator, or is it payroll? If it is non-core, then it should probably be acquired and preferably open-source, what are the available support options? If an outsourced service is going to be used to fulfill the non-core function, then the Data Ownership needs special attention within the SLA with the service provider.
If it is a core function, that will directly impact differentiation within the market then source ownership is a crucial element and one would not want to pass this on to potential competitors.
Finally commodity cycles will probably catch-up with most market differentiation factors eventually, and what was once a core differentiator will become a norm and will probably be available as open source or as an outsourced service.
RTFM is not a radio station.
He's arguing that people should get jobs at development shops that deliver Free Software solutions. TBH Free in this sense doesn't even mean GPL, it just means the customer gets the code. I think most custom programming jobs work like that anyway, you'd have to be mental to get a contractor to write a system for you and not get copyright assigned to you as a "work for hire". In such a situation a developer could rip off as much GPL code as they want and not be in violation because they're not restricting anyone from distributing or modifying the code, they would just be keeping the system internally. The business itself would probably have no interest in giving its improvements to other firms but if they ever did then they wouldn't be able to restrict any other parties freedom.
I think that's what RMS is arguing for. There should be a vast body of Free Software that everyone should be free to use. People would contribute back to a certain degree but also keep things internal just to themselves for a competitive edge in certain cases. It'd be different but there would still be software being written.
Nick
Right, I think Stallman's argument would be that if you 'give' a homeless person a sandwich not with *preconditions* (as in a sale), but with *ongoing conditions attached to their subsequent behaviour* (as in a licence), then you're not giving them freedom, you're establishing a relationship of dependency and control.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Well, you better erase that Linux distro off your hard drive if you'll only use software that doesn't use trademarked names. No, no, you can't use Debian either, because the name Linux is trademarked, too.
WRONG. It was never entirely about trademark. It was initially about the copyright status of the artwork for Firefox (the restrictive, all rights reserved "license"). Debian removed those artworks as they violate DFSG, and Mozilla Foundation said that Debian can't use the Firefox name at all if they do not use the official branding.
As for Debian's own logos and branding, they are in fact distributed with an open license (with a varying degree of openness depending on how official it is), so you are free to take them, modify them, and even distribute them (like fan art). The only thing you can't do is fraudulently claim some modified version of GNU/Linux distribution you have is the official Debian distro (i.e. the only thing that the trademark law really governs).
For some people it is then a different application if you rebrand it.
Same thing is some people believe that already compiled binary version is different application that application what is in source format.
Example, you have three different applications if you compile mozilla-firefox.tar.gz source files to two .deb packages for Ubuntu and Debian. And then one as .rpm for Linux-distribution like Mandriva.
And some people say that Firefox is different application in Windows and Linux or even on different Linux-distributions.
Richard, you're rewriting history. The licenses of open source software are more often derived from sources like the BSD and MIT licnses, which are at least as old as the GPL.
Stallman's not talking about the licenses here, but about the CRITERIA for something to be free software or open source software. The FSF has the four freedoms, the OSS has a pile of crap which basically resembles the four freedoms from the aspect of business.
is rapidly taking on all of the humility and open-mindedness of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
Yes only Stallman would walk into a El Swanko, order a meal and then demand:
1) The recipe
2) The business plan
3) The financial statements for the last 7 years
And then leave in huff when hes given the finger :P
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
clever -> childish
name -> attempt
It's a very childish attempt.
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
The link to the article where RMS says that developers must not develop proprietary software as a matter of idealism and go do something else instead.
(Non-free software section).
You can't handle the truth.
I'm a software engineer. I don't participate in open source software. Maybe because of that I'm missing some key bit of information. Why, in general, is it that people think there should be any free aspect to software development? Why is it viewed differently than any other line of work? I expect to pay anyone who has knowledge I don't have, whether it's a car mechanic, plumber, doctor, whatever. I understand that others can profit from open source software by adding to it, offering support, etc. But that seems to be done off the back of many programmers who participated initially creating the open source base of software. Aren't programmers devaluing their worth by working so hard to make as much as possible free? Not baiting anyone, I'm really curious, and would like to be enlightened by programmers (especially those who work on open source for nothing, and then see it made profitable by someone else).
I am sure Ballmer would not agree with this. Anybody know whatz Ballmer's Slash ID ?
I think I missed the point, can someone explain? Firefox is not free because the logos are copyrighted? Just like practically everything else in linux? What is different about Firefox than any other mostly free software? i.e. RHEL
I'm not making a point I'm seriously asking.
I dubbed it GNU for GNU's Not Unix.
I dubb it stupid. Here is another "recursing acronym" for you: RMRAAS. Expanded it means: "RMAAR Means Recursive Acronyms are Stupid."
Sorry. His idiotic compulsion to give a complete history of how clever it was to come up with GNU just drives me nuts.
It's obviously possible. Linus does this with the Linux trademark, and there don't seem to be any downstream limitations. There are all sorts of free and non-free entities ... including Debian ... that are able to use the Linux trademark without legal repercussions.
So, to ask the obvious question... Why doesn't the Mozilla group handle the Mozilla trademark in the same way that Linus does with the Linux trademark?
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
still an ass bonch? Are you karma farming, hairyfeet? DrLang21 should know that RMS often walks homeless people to buy them food because that way he knows the money is going to food. The walk is a sacrifice RMS is willing to make on top of the trivial ammount of money.
... that Stallman wants us to be free to call him God, or whatever the word is in your language and/or religion?
I'm no pro[phet|grammer], but something sounds a little fishy here.
One of these days, I am going to flip out. When I flip out, I'll be back in five minutes.