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Stallman On the State of Free Software 25 Years On
TRNick writes "What's the state of free software, 25 years after GNU's birth? TechRadar has an interview with Richard Stallman to find out. Stallman thinks free software is making good progress: 'Nowadays hardware developers are also increasingly likely to publish the interface specs so that we can develop free software that works with the hardware. Perhaps we are turning the corner, but we still have a big fight on our hands before all computer users have freedom.' But how many of us actually run an operating system that Richard Stallman would consider free? Many of the more popular GNU/Linux distributions, including Mandriva and Ubuntu, bundle proprietary code with their free software packages. Perhaps free software has reached a large enough install base that companies are happy to use it for their own gain, but aren't quite so willing to make their own commitments to free software development. How important this is to the success of free software depends on how strong your stance is on freedom is."
I'm not anti-open source, but this horrifically mangles the concept of freedom. Freedom is the right to be left alone, and the obligation to leave others alone, unless there is voluntary association between all relevant parties. Being able to have a thing or service for free is nice, but it has nothing to do with freedom.
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http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/open_source.png
The problem with Stallman's approach is the assumption that most people want the free software ideal. The reality is that most people are not even knowledgeable enough about their computers to even understand what free software is all about, why it matters, and why they should care. All they see is Windows with driver support in one corner, Mac OS X working out of the box on bundled hardware in the other corner, and Linux/BSD/etc. in the last corner with poor (but slowly improving) driver support that may or may not work out of the box.
.doc file, you should refuse to open it and insist that they send you a PDF or ODT file instead. Great when you are dealing with engineers and programmers, but not so great when you are dealing with people who think you need to create a .doc file in order to attach an image to an email.
What Stallman needs to do is catch up with the biggest development in the computing world of the past 25 years: the growth of computer users who do not know anything about their computers, and do not care to know. Most people do not care about the legal or technical issues surrounding their software, they just want to get online and do stuff. Stallman insists that when somebody sends you a
Disclaimer: I am a big supporter of free software, and I do wish that more people would learn more about their computers so they could at least understand that they have a choice.
Palm trees and 8
Whilst I respect Stallman enormously, I still believe that absolutes and extreme ideals are damaging to any cause. For example, how many of us can say with hand on heart that we don't use an MP3 decoder? A nVidia graphics card? Firmware for the Intel wireless cards? In RMS's eyes we've tainted our freedom, but in reality these compromises allow us MORE freedom of choice, not less.
I'm a great believer in the BSD way of doing things: Here's some code, it's free, use it however you like as long as you don't claim it's yours and we're not going to treat you like a second-class citizen if you install Flash because, quite frankly, you need to make compromises such as this these days. Idealism is all well and good in the abstract, but when you need a piece of information that's hiding inside a Flash-covered web site, freedom should really be the last thing on your mind; making your life more difficult for an ideal is not going to change anyone's minds whilst the majority are accepting the status quo. It just makes you look ridiculous and you end up with rather less freedom, realistically speaking, than you started out with.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
Sorry, but it's true. As such it is no surprise that few people use things he'd consider free. He has a very rigid definition of it, one that many people might disagree with. For example the BSD crowd might say his definition is messed up since it doesn't include the freedom to take something and make it not free.
Regardless, because of his stance on it, most people don't use software that's Stallman Free(tm). We live in a real world, and imperfect world. Most people have to be a bit pragmatic with things. If that means using software that isn't Stallman Free, well then so be it. Ubuntu is concerned with being easily usable and widely adopted, not with idealism.
Also there is still the large unanswered question of how everyone can make money in a free software world. Some software it's not a problem for. For example:
--Software that runs hardware. You are buying the hardware, the software is just something that helps make it go. Thus it isn't a problem to have anyone able to copy and redistribute it. Heck, might even be to your benefit as maybe they make it better. Your money is in the device, so the software needn't be restricted. Embedded devices would be an example.
--Software that needs support. You aren't selling the software here, what you are selling is service on it. The software is complex, and/or is used in a complex nature. Thus people are going to have difficulty doing it without professional help. That's what you sell, is the expertise to make it all work as they want. The software is free, the service isn't. Enterprise Linux would be an example.
--Software for a service. You offer a service, like hosting or something. You have software to make that possible and to interact with it. This works as free because people aren't paying you for it, people are paying for your service.
There are probably more too. However there are some major categories that don't work like that. The biggest would be a lot of consumer applications, like games and such. If you design the app well, with good tutorials and intuitive interfaces, people don't need anything else to make it work. Thus if you make it free software, where they are free to simply give it away, then they've no need to pay you for it.
Well this doesn't work if you want software to be made as anything more than a hobby. For someone to do something professionally, as in to devote most of their time to it, that thing has to pay. People have to eat, they have to pay rent, they have to buy things they need. That means they need a job that pays. So if there's no way to make money off their software, well then they can't have a job making it. It can be a hobby, but not a job.
For example I have a hobby redoing soundtrack from old games. It amuses me, and others seem to enjoy it. However it isn't my job, and can't be. For legal and practical reasons, I can't make money on it, certainly not near enough to support myself. Thus it gets relegated to hobby status. I work on it when I like, when I've free time. Ends up taking a long time for that reason. What takes me a year I could easily do in a couple weeks if I were being paid to do it and directing all my efforts at that. However I'm not, so it happens on my terms. I do only projects I like, only when I like to do them.
So unless we want to see large classes of software relegated to that sort of status, we either have to allow for non-free software, or to figure out a way that people can make money on all free software. Also please not by "make money" I don't mean "make a token amount of cash through a few donations." I mean "Make enough money to support themselves and their family in a manner befitting of their skill and education." A hobby can't become a job just because people toss you a couple hundred dollars now and again. It's got to be something you can support yourself on.
Thus far, I've heard no solutions and can't come up with any myself. So we have to deal with the reality that not all software can be free software.
Mandriva comes in two flavors: One, and Free. The Free version is just what it sounds like: 100% free software. No proprietary browser plugins, drivers, apps, etc.
I like the concept of cardware http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcardware
to post a card to the maker, that you enjoy the free software.
You've managed to eloquently summarize what has been bouncing around in my brain for a while --- I am greatly indebted to you. Kind of like when someone finally tells you what is the name of that tune which you can't get out of your head.
"While Linux Torvalds gets most of the plaudits nowadays for the Linux kernel, it was Stallman who originally posted plans for a new, and free, operating system."
Software can not be truly free until hardware is free.
rewriting history since 2109
The idea of patenting software was a bad one and it is the biggest threat to the software industry. It makes the entire issue of open and freely available source minor in comparison.
At some point you have to stop nitpicking and just enjoy what you have.
Just want to note that we have now come to the stage where software is being developed which actively creates freedom. See, for example, Metascore and the many similar projects which allow human societies to organize themselves without the oppression of elected leaders.
RMS is always so adamant that we call it "Free Software" and not "Open Source Software". Problem is, whether Free Software is a better name for it or not, it's got hideous problems. The main one being this (from TFA):
You just can't use the term "free software" around normal people - they don't get it. They use the term "free software" themselves all the time, to mean Internet Explorer and Stupid Window Theme Pack For Windows 30 Day Trial and other garbage. Like it or not, the term is overloaded, and RMS's definition is not the default.
I prefer the term "open source". It's far less ambiguous (the ambiguity between "open source" and RMS-free is a much more subtle distinction than the ambiguity between "free software" and RMS-free). People either know what it means, or don't know what it means (and I can explain). Much better than people assuming it means something it doesn't.
It's amazing that GNU is 25 years old now. In 1984 I was using a TRS-80, and the latest thing I knew about proprietary versus nonproprietary software was that Radio Shack had given up on the idea that customers would only be able to buy software from Radio Shack -- they had finally come around to the point of view that it was OK for third-party software houses to sell applications that would run on their OS. How many people are as far ahead of their time as Stallman was in 1984?
There are plenty of obstacles remaining, but I think it's impressive as hell how much you can do with free software today, and how easy it is to do it. My mother in law, who's in her 80s, installed Ubuntu on her computer this year, with just a little help from me over the phone. She actually had more trouble installing java (which she needed for her favorite online Scrabble app) than she did installing the OS. My neighbor came over for a beer yesterday and asked to see my Linux box. His main reaction to Gnome was, "Wow, I didn't expect anything so professional looking." When he contemplated the idea of using Linux in his home office, the main concern I couldn't answer satisfactorily was whether or not it would work with his multifunction fax machine/copier. So, okay, no, he probably won't run Linux in the foreseeable future. But it's amazing to me that the big obstacles are now confined to issues as peripheral as that. Heck, you'd probably have a lot of the same concerns if you were contemplating switching to MacOS from Windows.
Intellectually, I think Stallman was very clever with his invention of the GPL framework. No matter how many BSD-versus-GPL flamewars there are on slashdot, I think any impartial observer has to admit that the general approach (using copyright for a purpose diametrically opposed to most people's idea of the purpose of copyright) was pretty novel in 1984, and it's been wildly successful, even in other contexts. Wikipedia is a good example. The fact that WP is GFDL licensed is what makes people comfortable contributing to it.
Find free books.
OMG. This is no joke: I thought Richard Stallman and Eric S. Raymond were the same guy, for the last YEARS! I never thought that there would be two crazy bearded men loving weapons and GNU!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Stallman insists that when somebody sends you a .doc file, you should refuse to open it and insist that they send you a PDF or ODT file instead.
I don't see what's so important about returning .doc files unopened unless a popular piece of copylefted free software with three O's in the name fails to open it.
"Umsonst " as in "this haircut is for free" and it also means "of or to no purpose" such as when you go into town on a public holiday or a Sunday and can't buy anything because the shops are closed.
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
So when a developer uses *his* freedom and develops in Flash, he ends up taking away everybody else's freedom because now they must use Flash as well if they want to see this site.
But who loses freedom when a developer uses his freedom and develops in Flash and tests in Gnash? Or when someone writes a document in Microsoft Word and proofreads it in AbiWord or OOo Writer before sending it out?
That means that for the hardware to run, there must be firmware available, either on a flash cell (which increases the cost of the hardware) or in the driver (which now has a free software complication).
I've seen 2 GB USB memory cards for 5 USD retail, and I'd imagine that FPGA firmware would fit in a much smaller, cheaper flash chip. So aren't there specialty hardware makers willing to increase MSRP of a peripheral by $5 to cover the cost of proudly putting a penguin on the box?
... shaved and took a shower. ;-)
C|N>K
Stallman reminds me a lot of George Bush; if you disagree with his position on something, you're accused of being against freedom.
Freedom is an abstract for one whose domain stops at his doorstep. His goods come from door-to-door salesmen and little else. This is the metaphorical state of the average computer consumer.
It could easily have escaped your notice, but Linux in general seems to lack much of a paid sales force. How then, is Linux to breach the confines of this prison of the computing masses?
By any damn means available. Failing to fire his musket ball, for debates over its pedigree, leads to a dead revolutionary. If piggybacking on, beside or in nebulous coincidence with enabling proprietary products advances the elements of freedom, it also advances the concepts of freedom.
The broader domain of human freedom has been a work in progress for thousands of years longer than its minor offspring, software freedom. In that light, it would seem disingenuous for anyone owning goods produced in the Peoples' Republic of China to decry software written in Redmond, WA on the basis of such software's impingement on freedom.
Let's just say: freebre.
Freebre software.
You can take our lives, but you will never take our FREEEEEBREE SOFTWARE!!!
You can't handle the truth.
As someone that grew up with computers, I can understand Stallman's vision. I don't agree with it, but I can understand it. He would like to think there are 1.5 kinds of people in the world: those that write code and those that haven't gotten around to writing code. His sense of "freedom" is important to both parts of that, assuming that is all there is to humanity.
I think it is much closer to say there are three groups: those that write code, those that should not be writing code but are trying and those that will never, ever write code. Call the last group "users". What RMS misses completely is the last group is probably the most important. They are utterly at the mercy of the first two groups, and they are continually being disappointed by the second.
The ability to design computer software is an art and it is not one that is easily taught to people that just don't get it. Writing clear, functional, concise code that implements a design is much easier to teach but in the world of open source and free software these two roles are usually combined. And, from looking at a lot of code in the open source world, much of it is from the folks that aren't doing a good job of design and probably shouldn't be writing code either.
The future is not one where everyone is a programmer. The world is bigger than that. There are a lot of people that have no desire to ever be anything more than a user and for them being handed a piece of software that is intuitively easy to use, relatively bug-free and gets the job done for them is what they want. From both proprietary and open source software development users are continually handed non-intuitive, buggy software that accomplishes something less than 100% of the job. And, collectively speaking, our users deserve better than that.
Probably the biggest problem I see with open source is the lack of critical review. Without this someone that turns out garbage code will continue to do so forever. Unless they stumble upon their own code and have to maintain it for years. Even then, it takes a stern taskmaster to reinforce the idea that if it isn't maintainable, it wasn't worth writing in the first place. And that if all the users can't use it how they want to, it isn't doing the job either. Yes, I do mean all the users and all of what they want it to do.
Where is the professional society that builds up talented but rudderless newcomers? Where does someone that wants to be turning out a "professional" quality product go for help? Universities? No, I don't think so. Most commercial establishments are just as driven to produce something "good enough" that they just have a hope of maintainability and usability. Sometimes they get lucky, but most of the time they do not. And we wonder why software development gets a bad reputation?
RMS would like us to each be able to fix the bugs we find and extend usability to take something that does 50% of the job we need done and fix it so it does 100% for us. Nice idea, but it comes from a flawed premise - a sort of universality of programming ability. The reality is major talent will be always rare and it is up to these folks to help out and guide those with ability but undeveloped talent. And then there are the users. These will always be in the majority and they cannot help but rely on the people with ability and talent to do what they cannot do. I do not think the mantle of this responsibility can so easily be passed off on the users.
Sure, it'll be piece by piece, but there still needs to be a unified vision of an ideal to work towards, otherwise nobody will know what exactly is happening "piece by piece", and FLOSS wouldn't be a community driven force in the software industry, it would just be a strange phenomenon. In a way, RMS is the Steve Jobs of OSS. And people still buy Apple products even if they think Steve Jobs is crazy.
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Free and open source software - hell, ANYTHING open source and free - is not about "freedom" per se. It's about cooperation rather than competition. It's about that dirty economic word socialism versus Mother Nature's status quo capitalism.
One of my friends works for a company in Raleigh that gives all its employees Fridays off to work on open source projects of their choice. This keeps them at the cutting edge of new developments and allows their company's name to get a lot of publicity among OS circles.
get people using half-proprietary linux because it works and they like it. as soon as its used by everyone get rid of the proprietary chunks and voila, everyone is free whether they like it or not
>Ubuntu happened! Fantastic. Linux for human beings. >For the first time, we can give Ubuntu CDs to our >grandmas and get some degree of success. It's a >Linux distro that's tuned for normal users.
Gawd, you fanbois annoy me to no end.
According to the gospel of mark, all linux distro were tuned to geeks and he discovered normal users.
I installed Mandriva and SUSE for my family BEFORE ubuntu even existed and Mandriva was mainly catering to normal users then.
Before you discovered Ubuntu on Digg, there was such a thing as normal users.
>looks great. It can play DVDs and do 3D >graphics.
Right. So could other distros.
Stop drinking the marketing koolaid.
They are a nice distro but hardly trendsetters except in the community building department.
They are an anachronism that exists only thanks to its benefactors money. They are a dead end in terms of being a model for others to follow unless you too can find a sugar daddy.
I see nothing wrong with the Mandriva, Ubuntu and others who offer a 'free' and non-free software version. We need to protect ourselves from laissez-faire. No one is forcing you to use the all-free version.
The problem with Stallman's approach is the assumption that most people want the free software ideal.
Where does Stallman make this assumption? Every tale of the genesis of the free software movement concerns Stallman's PERSONAL/INDIVIDUAL/N=1 to be a free end user of software. How do you go from N=1, to "most people". Seriously, what the fuck?
What Stallman needs to do is catch up with the biggest development in the computing world of the past 25 years: the growth of computer users who do not know anything about their computers, and do not care to know.
You suggest an advocacy movement centered on people who - by your definition - DO NOT CARE? What is next in your grand scheme, letting the homeless run the local Commerce Chamber? Sex offender running day cares? Please share with me your insights!Stallman insists that when somebody sends you a .doc file, you should refuse to open it and insist that they send you a PDF or ODT file instead. Great when you are dealing with engineers and programmers, but not so great when you are dealing with people who think you need to create a .doc file in order to attach an image to an email.
WTF? You want me to read your shit, then send it in a safe format I will open. People should send more PDFs unless they want me to edit the document. I get .doc and .xls all the time and my first thought is, "what the fuck do they want me to do with this?" 90% of the time, they are not looking for me to edit. "Save as PDF" is a wonderful thing - thank you Open Office!
Disclaimer: I am a big supporter of free software, and I do wish that more people would learn more about their computers so they could at least understand that they have a choice.
That is why advocacy groups exist. You don't run a political campaign with sullen, emo 14-year olds even if the election will impact them more so than anyone else.
Which is nice, isn't it.
And they can do this because they have a binary blob.
Fucking brilliand.
What's the frigging point of a BSD software being free if it only works on a 386 because "improvements" to make it work on Itanium were made propriatory?
What about if the BSD code is patented. BSD doesn't allow you to use patents even if the software is BSD licensed. Your "free" BSD code is no longer free.
And if you're going to arse about "free" being "the original version was freely available" then GPL is exactly as free. All you have to do is wait until the copyright expires.
Why is OK for an end-user to make money using your work but it's so immoral for another developer to use it in a commercial product? Usage of free software shouldn't be creating something free also?
People are probably less cognizant of what is free and not free until they don't have it. Gnewsense 1.0 was launched on November 2nd, 2006 and Sun announced that they would open Java 11 days later. Not that there's a direct correlation, but Gnewsense launched 1.0 without a decent JDK. I wasn't even aware of the "Java trap" before this. Or that mplayer was not free. Or difficulties in playing Youtube videos (although gnash helps a bit - funded by John Gilmore!) That GLX was unfree was known by some for a while, but it didn't really penetrate the open source community for a while - it was ripped out of Gnewsense in January 2008. SGI made an announcement in September that opened their end up, but there are still some legal minefields so it's not in Gnewsense yet.
Anyhow, I can't think of much I can't do on this that I want to. No good JDK was really the biggest thing, and now that's taken care of. I don't have time to play World of Warcraft or the like nowadays.
This is not correct. Mandriva offers both a totally Free/Open Source version, and a complete with third part driver version.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
He's lost most of his relevance. Move on.
"Freedom is the right to be left alone, and the obligation to leave others alone, unless there is voluntary association between all relevant parties."
Which, in my opinion, is a problem of the "free software movement" vs. the "open source" guys. The open source guys seem cool that people choose to use proprietary stuff if they wish. As long as you can use what you want, fine with them. The problem is with zealots claiming that there is no freedom unless everyone is using GNU-something. That's not freedom.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I don't give a fuck about whether my OS is Stallmanfree or not.
And they agree that this is part of the ideal... that you can choose the desktop you want and do what you want with it.