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After 30 Years of the Free Software Foundation, Where Do We Stand?
An anonymous reader writes with this interview with John Sullivan, Executive Director of The Free Software Foundation. "There is a growing concern about government surveillance. At the same time, those of us who live and breathe technology do so because it provides us with a service and freedom to share our lives with others. There is a tacit assumption that once we leave the store, the device we have in our pocket, backpack, or desk is ours. We buy a computer, a tablet, a smartphone, and we use applications and apps without even thinking about who really owns the tools and whether we truly own any of it. You purchase a device, yet you are not free to modify it or the software on it in any way. It begs the question of who really owns the device and the software?"
While many of the FSF goals are laudable, the real world has intervened.
There are people out there who just want to cause trouble, mischief, or otherwise harm others and the easiest way for the masses to protect themselves from this threat is to use a walled garden like Apple has built. The masses have spoken, and after weighing the costs of the walled garden (censorship etc) vs the benefits (no viruses), the masses have opted for safety with the added benefit of stores with trained staff to help them with any troubles they do run into.
Furthermore, the FSF shot themselves in the feet with the reactionary GPLv3 and their refusal to allow gcc be useful for third party applications (open source or otherwise).
If Apple could have continued using gcc, then it is likely LLVM/clang would never have had the success that it has.
If FSF had left things alone and stayed with the GPLv2, then corporations wouldn't have run away from any GPLv3 software, with the developer community following.
IF the FSF was truly concerned about the hardware issue, then they should have gone into the hardware business instead of trying to control it via the GPL. The only way to ensure open hardware is to make it yourself, because as the GPLv3 has demonstrated when you try to control with a software license then the hardware companies suddenly find the money to invest in alternative software instead of going the easy route of using your GPL'd software.
But then again this is the type of behavior that brought you the attempt to take over the Linux kernel by renaming GNU/Linux when they were incapable of writing their own kernel.
We where onto a good thing, but we failed to adapt.
We failed to adapt to the commercial attacks that make closed source software the gatekeeper to software freedom.
We lost the mobile space, Android is full of crap software running on a Free kernel that hardly anyone can use freely.
Free software is free beer that corporations on-sell minus the libre.
how about because there is no DMCA or other such legal bullshit preventing them from doing what they want with HARDWARE THEY OWN??
Since when has "ownership" ever equated to "I can do anything I want with it?"
In no modern society has "ownership" ever had anything to do with "has no restrictions on the usage of." If you want to debate whether users have adequate freedom to do what they want with their electronics, that is absolutely an arguable topic! But please don't say it has anything to do with "ownership."
"95% of all Slashdot
The situation isn't ideal, but it's much better than it was before. I have a gaming computer that runs Windows. The rest of my computers (including at my traditonal 9-5 desk job) is Linux. That's undeniable progress.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
See Brad Kuhn's talk about the future of copyleft (mirror) for the cure to non-copylefted free software—to keep software freedom in derivative works, license with strongly copylefted free software licenses (the AGPL version 3 or later being the best choice now) and then enforce the license.
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