Evaluating the Harmful Effects of Closed Source Software

New submitter Drinking Bleach writes "Eric Raymond, coiner of the term 'open source' and co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, writes in detail about how to evaluate the effects of running any particular piece of closed source software and details the possible harms of doing so. Ranking limited firmware as the least kind of harm to full operating systems as potentially the greatest harms, he details his reasoning for all of them. Likewise, Richard Stallman, founder of GNU and the Free Software Foundation, writes about a much more limited scope, Nonfree DRM'd games on GNU/Linux, in which he takes the firm stance that non-free software is unethical in all cases but concedes that running non-free games on a free operating system is much more desirable than running them on a non-free operating system itself (such as Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS X)."

Comments

on the other side of the coin

[Osgeld]

Having XFCE and ubuntu earlier today granted me with some artifacts tween the gimp and firefox which built up until the screen was complete garbage, and its been a number of years, possibally since windows 98 days since I have seen that on the MS side

Windows may suck for a long list of reasons, but for some odd reason, will millions of brilliant nerds working for a goal, more shit gets screwed up on OSS systems, more frequently. Personally I went from a windows only mindset in the mid to late 90's to a linux only mindset in the 2000's, just to end up dreading having to boot linux in the 2010's

Re:on the other side of the coin

[AthanasiusKircher]

I say the following as someone who is a huge fan of Linux and who has used it as my primary OS for at least five years, and as a secondary OS for well over a decade.

People do have problems with Linux you know.

Those who do, don't bitch about it on Slashdot

Well, actually sometimes they try, until a hundred screaming open-source fans shout them down. Followed by a bunch of downmodding, so you can't even see those with complaints, only the Linux cheering.

Slashdot is a great place. Most people here are pretty devoted to open-source, which I think is a great thing. However, a significant percentage also feel the need to denigrate any person who comes along and says anything bad about their experience with open-source.

Every OS has its problems. I have no idea what caused the OP's problem, but I have had enough experience with random Linux crap (and bad hardware, for that matter) not to discount this experience immediately as apocryphal or as some sort of Microsoft shill making crap up.

If you actually believe in open-source, listen to the problems and take them seriously. If you don't want to help solve them, just shut the hell up. Denying that anyone ever has any problem in Linux is just hopelessly naive.

How exactly do I support myself as a developer?

[moshberm]

Sure, open source is great (I've contributed), but I think too much of either side is wrong. It's unethical to take what's not yours, be it because you don't want other people to rip you off, or for some other reason. So charging for software makes it inconvenient for people who want it. But think about the people who spend hours and hours coding. How do they afford coffee to stay up writing software so open-source freeloaders can consume whatever they feel like? I've contributed to open source, only to have my work resold as someone else's. Look, I'm not against open source, but to make a blanket statement and call all closed source software unethical is absolutely stupid.

Re:How exactly do I support myself as a developer?

[ldobehardcore]

Cory Doctorow considers closed source setups unethical because it gives the devs the ability to hide any function they want from the user. If the user can't see what's running, how can they defend themselves from spying, censorship and propaganda? If a user can't be allowed to view and control what runs on his hardware, he can't be sjre he has any other digital rights either regarding his hardware. And that contradicts the very definition of ownership of property

Re:How exactly do I support myself as a developer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stallman is not against paying for software. He's for free (as in freedom) software, i.e. software the user is free to (pay someone to) modify. Heck, he sold early copies of emacs (or was it something else?) in tapes, and emacs was free software at the time (and of course still is). Although having access to the source code means no cracking is necessary, that buys you a few hours at best (or, days if it's an unknown game). Others copying your work and selling as theirs is a huge problem for some types of games, but depending on the game you could GPL the code but keep the maps/art proprietary; that way anyone can improve the game but copycats will have a harder time copying you unless they're Zynga (perphaps not perfect, but that was done in a game or two, unfortunately I don't recall the names).

Re:How exactly do I support myself as a developer?

[perryizgr8]

then the user is most welcome to write his own s/w. this whole argument is shit. do you think about who's gonna spy on you when you talk on the phone, when you watch tv, when you drive your on-star car?? accept it, you can't have total control over stuff that you didn't make yourself. and you can't make everything yourself.

Re:How exactly do I support myself as a developer?

[w.hamra1987]

no one is saying you can't be paid for your work. I write free software as well, and i make money selling support and warranties. my code comes with absolutely no warranty, and anyone can use it, but seeing as it's aimed at schools (i design school administration systems), you can bet they want some guarantee the system will function, support availability if something malfunctions, bug fixes when released, and for the "pro" package they get to suggest custom features that i'll happily implement.

some choose to be charged by hours of actual support, others buy annual support packages. and then, some might want to just use the system themselves, without my support, it's their choice, i really don't mind.

oh, and i make some profit selling hardware, almost all schools here don't have a proper server, and some have horrible networking that requires some changing, to which i charge money as well...

it just works :)

Re:How exactly do I support myself as a developer?

[neonsignal]

Stallman writes "If we don't want to live in a jungle, we must change our attitudes. We must start sending the message that a good citizen is one who cooperates when appropriate, not one who is successful at taking from others. I hope that the free software movement will contribute to this: at least in one area, we will replace the jungle with a more efficient system which encourages and runs on voluntary cooperation."

Doesn't seem too fixated to me, just keeping his actions as a change agent to a manageable subset of all the things in society that need improvement.

Re:How exactly do I support myself as a developer?

[stsp]

I'm sad to hear that someone ripped off your work and resold it as their own. That's unjust, and it's one of the inherent risks of open source development.

There is a healthy variant of this where companies build a product based on an open source code base, something that adds value but is doing something that the community around the open source project isn't interested in doing. Many companies do this, including Facebook and Yahoo, who fund development of of e.g. Apache Hadoop, and Apple who are using BSD and Apache-licensed code in OS X. If you're doing this well, you feed back any changes the community might be interested in. And that doesn't mean just dropping some code on their lists and walking away. You need to interact nicely, react to community feedback, and eventually become part of the community and share some responsibility.

Whoever sold your work as their own took the irresponsible and damaging route with the above approach, looking for short-term profit only, with no interest in supporting the original project. To fight this, you can use a copyleft licence and enforce it if it is violated, and/or build a community that is strong and dedicated to supporting the original product (this is why new projects at the Apache Software Foundation go through an incubating phase that builds up a community around the project -- the project graduates once the community is deemed healthy). As an additional lever, you could also trademark your product's name to ensure that others who use your work cannot use the same name for their own product but must rebrand it.

You can also sell services that relate to the software. E.g. where I work we sell support and consulting for open source development tools (svn, git, eclipse, and the like). We also contribute to some of the projects we sell services for, so money people pay for our services partly funds further development of these open source tools. We make sure clients are aware of that, and they are usually quite happy about getting support from someone who is a developer on the project. This gives us a small competitive edge over others who sell consulting for these open source products but don't interact with the open source community.

An excellent description of the role money can play in an open source project is given by Karl Fogel at http://www.producingoss.com/en/money.html

.

Re:How exactly do I support myself as a developer?

[martin-boundary]

this whole argument is shit.

Or maybe YOUR response is shit?

then the user is most welcome to write his own s/w.

Not if the OS doesn't LET HIM. That's what the bootloader fight is about.

do you think about who's gonna spy on you when you talk on the phone,

Of course. That's why there are laws AGAINST PHONETAPPING, because some people thought about that before you were born. I guess you didn't know that?

when you watch tv,

There are default rules about privacy here too. That's why you need to VOLUNTEER to be monitored by Nielsen ratings, for example.

accept it, you can't have total control over stuff that you didn't make yourself. and you can't make everything yourself.

How about YOU ACCEPT it and leave the rest of us to figure out how to save our privacy in the future?

Total control isn't even remotely the issue. What is the issue is freedom. Freedom to do what we like, freedom from being spied upon, and freedom from being forced to accept the economic slavery that we are being pushed into.

It's not difficult. Companies are welcome to do whatever they like so long as they DON'T break our freedoms. Each time they do, we'll just have to complain about it, figure out what it means, and keep talking about it until we find a way to smack them so they stop.

Elitist nonsense for the most part

[MrMickS]

Whilst I can see the points being made, and understand them, there is little difference between closed and open source from an ordinary end-user point of view. If they are unable to examine, update, modify, and build the software themselves there is no real difference between open source or closed source software. To the contrary closed source is likely to better serve their particular needs as the closed source vendor has to persuade them to spend money on it.

Re:Elitist nonsense for the most part

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you understood very little. Although most people cannot code themselves, with free software they're allowed to ask anybody who can to help them. With proprietary software they face a vendor-lock-in with monopoly on changes to the product and usually to support for the product. And free software is not always gratis. Red Hat runs a billion dollars a year business with free software.

Re:RMS is more prescient than ESR credits him for.

[93 Escort Wagon]

The microwave example is not that good, either. Many modern microwaves have an insanely complicated user interface, and I wouldn't mind replacing it with a more intuitive one. Not to mention what silly things you could do with a microwave if you could network it.

Because if there's one thing people think of when it comes to FOSS software, it's well designed, intuitive interfaces.