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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."
The term 'free' is an unfortunate consequence of there being no more specific word in English. The word is meant, to use the well-worn, free-software phrase, to be free as in speech rather than free as in beer.
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
Fortunately, the concept of 'Free Software' has nothing to do with 'being able to have a thing or service for free'.
(btw, it says so on the second sentence of the second paragraph of the FA)
if I give you the ability to do *anything* with my code and you turn around and tell your end users *you can't do all that much* who exactly is the one that is free here?
it's voluntary, no one's holding a gun to your head telling you that you must use the code, the only thing is that if you choose to use that code and distribute it to others, you can't turn around and weaken their ability to do the same as you. keeping the code in house without distributing it O.T.O.H you can do whatever you like with it.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Yes, yes. But the third part, even if voluntary and completely in the libertarian sense, is what brings government involvement to any degree. It's the entity that enforces contracts (a product of some voluntary associations) and also via copyright and patents which are abstract concepts in the Constition.
So, even by that definition, Stallman's concept is giving you more freedom by a) having less or no EULAs and b) less copyright concerns. I believe in this sense, the term "Freedom" is in context of being unencumbered of restrictive obligations of running code. I know when I install Ubuntu without seeing 100 Eulas pop up or asking me for my CD key plus various other nag screen I feel a little more unencumbered by BS. For the developer, it frees them from, well, developing the wheel over and over again. Seeing that all sides of the Open Source equation is a completely voluntary system, and not some communist dictatorship giving property to the masses, it works perfectly fine within the term freedom.
Freedom also allows you sell yourself into indentured servitude (perhaps called car/home/student loans today). However, if a spiritual philosophy came along, shunning pure materialism, converting people voluntarily to its way of thinking and they ended up happier: wouldn't it, too, fit into the freedom paradigm. Couldn't we judge one way of life in some ways ultimately freer than the other?
Anyway, fortunately for us and FTA, Stallman, as always, defined his freedom specifically:
1. To run the program as you wish.
2. To study the source code, and change it so the program does what you wish.
3. To redistribute exact copies when you wish.
4. To distribute copies of your modified versions, when you wish.
I will grant the GNU license isn't free in itself, but one is free to take it (or not).
I've always though Stallman's views were quite useful to have around.
I forget where I read it, but someone once pointed out that if you need a new computer at work you should go in asking for $10,000,000 - then when you get laughed out of the office and come back asking for a ridiculous gaming rig that costs $5000 you might just get it.
It's the same theory, in my view. Realistically he's never going to get what he wants, but just the act of having him there campaigning for it makes 'middle of the road' suggestions more reasonable by comparison.
Actually, Stallman's definition of free is straightforward and intuitive, and it does include BSD, MIT, public domain, etc. What you may find objectionable is that he prefers copyleft. As a practical matter, due to the nature of copyleft, he prefers licenses that are compatible with the GNU GPL. Take a look a the FSF's page on licenses for more information.
That might have been true 25 years ago, but today you can just call it "freedom software".
(with the added bonus that if it's not freedom software it's terrorist software -- a pretty good description of the crap a convicted monopolist pushes).
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.
Not sure why people refuse to understand that freedom requires restrictions. Lack of restrictions is called Anarchy. To maximize everyone's freedoms requires restrictions. It's the difference between being free to punch someone in the face and being free to not get punched in the face.
Please provide an example of this happening. The end user is under no obligation to "accept the terms" of the GPL (despite the fact that many software distributors stupidly force users to do just that when installing GPL software). Freedom 0 specifically grants the user unlimited freedom to use the software as (s)he sees fit. Any restrictions placed on the use of GPL software is a direct violation of the GPL.
The GPL governs the distribution of software, and prevents developers and distributors from restricting the way a person uses the software. Claims that the GPL restricts use is the great straw man of the proprietary vendors' anti-free software FUD campaign.
The fact that your nVidea drivers might break the next time you do a kernel update is beyond the control of those who provide the free components of your system. If nVidea wants their hardware to work with anybody's hardware or software, they need to either release working drivers themselves, or release the specifications so others may develop them. I can't imagine how you arrived at the conclusion that the FSF is in some way placing "every possible roadblock in place to the end user making use of software that does not meet their standards of free."
That's what they've been doing for 25 years. Any lack of interoperability you've been experiencing is likely due to a lack of published specifications for that proprietary hardware and software you just referred to.
So you slag the people who provide free software and blame them of the lack of interoperability you experience when you mix it with closed-source propriety hardware and software, and you also don't pay for the proprietary stuff, violating the terms of their user agreements (which, unlike the GPL, do restrict your right to use the software).
Why are you complaining again?
I don't care why you're posting AC
The problem is that he also has an implied:
5. You can't run anything EXCEPT Free Software.
rule, and that's the one everybody disagrees with
Well gee, the guy who's spent the last twenty-five years leading the Free Software movement has some politics that you disagree with.
It's not like anybody is actually forcing you to stop using proprietary software. The only person who might stop you from using Ubuntu because of binary blobs are the owners of said blobs. They could sue Ubuntu for massive statutory damages for wilful infringement.
Nick