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Interviews: Ask Richard Stallman a Question
RMS founded the GNU Project, the Free Software Foundation, and remains one of the most important and outspoken advocates for software freedom. He now spends much of his time fighting excessive extension of copyright laws, digital restrictions management, and software patents. RMS has agreed to answer your questions about GNU/Linux, how GNU relates to Linux the kernel, free software, why he disagrees with the idea of open source, and other issues of public concern. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.
I found your piece on selling free software to be pretty logical on paper. However, has it ever worked in the wild? Can you name companies or revenues that currently operate on this idea (and I'm not talking about services or support of the software)? I simply can't come up with a widely used monetized piece of software licensed under the GNU GPL whereby the original software was sold at a single price and shipped with the source code -- free for the original purchaser to distribute by the license's clauses. Can you list any revenue generation from that? I must admit I'm not exactly enamored with paying for free software (as in your definition of free) before it's written yet I cannot think of any other way this would fairly compensate the developer.
My work here is dung.
What do you see as the next big issue coming up with software licensing that isn't addressed with the existing GPL and AGPL licenses?
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
My biggest concern in this day and age is the dumbing down and comercialization of computing. What used to be open, interoperable programs has now turned into ad based, closed apps. We've gone from having something like Pidgin being able to run all instant messaging clients ad free to now having to download a separate app for every messager, for example (no one uses the older ones anymore, or they've been shut down). Also, open standards like email have been falling out of favour due to corporate pushes to lock down users into walled gardens like Facebook. Of course there's always the option of not using these closed source apps, but it really hinders your social life. Also, programs (now called "apps") are designed to milk the users for money, rather than to benefit the users, as you know is the case with things like " defective by design" DRM.
Is there any way computing can truly become open and user centric again, or do you think it's truly a lost cause? If so, how can we do it without losing connection with the rest of the world who will not give up their FB/WhatsApp/Kik (and don't answer their phone or emails anymore)?
Hi RMS,
What are your favorite books? What is the recent book you read and liked ? Is there any book you think every programmer must read ?
Thanks
Neutrino Kitten
It seems like Microsoft is starting to contribute more to open source products. What's your take on them joining the community, given their rather different approach in historical times?
Hi RMS,
Firstly I am fan of what you've done and what you have given the world. I also asked you a weakly related quesion about two decades ago when I was a teenager and didn't realise one shouldn't just email random well known people on the internet. You were kind enough to take the time to write a thoughtful reply.
The question is about subversion of Free software via a stable API. If a stable API exists in some popular library/piece of software, it is possible to write a shim layer, where the GPL shim serialises the interaction then sends that to a non-free component[*]. The non-free component of course has the interesting and useful logic. Since it's not linking to the Free part, then it's not covered by the GPL.
Via such a mechanism, one could use a significant GPL component in a non-free program. Naturally this is very much at odds with the spirit of the GPL, but not the letter. From what I recall, you explicitly warned about this sort of thing when GCC were creating an API for interacting with external tools. GCC being arguably the leading compiler in the world[1], would be prone to such subversion.
I believe your suggestion at the time was to essentially neuter the plugin API so that there was nothing left to subvert. Naturally though that comes with downsides is that it also makes it harder for the Free software community to work with GCC. GCC did eventually decide to go with the plugin API.
Do you still think that not having an API would have been the right choice? If so, what to you think the relative tradeoff is between making Free software better and as a side effect making it easier for non-free software development? If not, what made you change your mind? Either way, where do you draw the line---gcc always could be used to compile non-free software and of course making GCC better makes such things easier.
It also seems that GCC went with the plugin interface because they believed that the improvement to the usability of GCC was worth it relative to the risks. Do you think it's possible in theory to have flexible plugin interfaces without openning the door to non-free software, such as some hypothetical license change?
Thankyou for your time :)
[*] related: if one has two libraries offering identical APIs such as the various libcs, then it's hard to argue that something using libc is a derived work of a particular implementation. Especially if it's dynamically linked it could easily pick up any number of several different compatible ones. The concept of derived work is what gives the GPL and indeed all of copyright its teeth.
[1] To anyone who wants to argue that LLVM or Intel CC or etc is better please don't. GCC is arguable the best in that I and others could make reasonable arguments for that case. It's not provably the best.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I teach CS at a university, often including introductory courses. Regarding FOSS, what message(s) is/are the most vital to communicate to people who are writing computer programs for the first time?