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The Free Software Foundation: 30 Years In
An anonymous reader writes: The Free Software Foundation was founded in 1985. To paint a picture of what computing was like back then, the Amiga 1000 was released, C++ was becoming a dominant language, Aldus PageMaker was announced, and networking was just starting to grow. Oh, and that year Careless Whisper by Wham! was a major hit. Things have changed a lot in 30 years. Back in 1985 the FSF was primarily focused on building free pieces of software that were primarily useful to nerdy computer people. These days we have software, services, social networks, and more to consider. In this in-depth interview, FSF executive director John Sullivan discusses the most prominent risks to software freedom today, Richard M. Stallman, and more.
FSF has definitely made the world a better place by given users choices, but also, ironically, by improving quality of proprietary software. I would hate to think how buggy SSL would be if every vendor rolled their own copy. If they could agree on a protocol standard at all without a mature free software stack that is.
But I wonder if nowadays software is really the most important thing that needs to be made more free as in freedom. How about free culture (copyrights that expire in time to share your favouring movies with grandkids)? Free food (planting seeds without Monsanto permission)? Free medicine (generic drugs would save millions of lives worldwide)? Free immigration/religion/politics?
Wish we had folks like RMS to achieve concrete progress in these causes.
GNU = GNU Not Unix.
While he made products for the Unix environment, his Goal is to get rid of the Closed Unix systems and make an Open Source Unix like system. GNU/Hurd was his attempt, however Linux was able to get something out faster, and the GNU community jumped on that to fulfill the Vision of GNU. Hence why they like to call it GNU/Linux. The GNU Not Unix Code clone of Unix, that happens to be based of the Linux Kernel not the HURD Microkernel.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Part of the reason why Cloud/SaaS/Remote Hosted/Time Shared software has gotten popularity, was due to working around restrictions in Open Source systems, such as the Anti-TiVo addition.
Huh? How so? The only way this claim would be valid is if large amounts of FOSS software had actually adopted GPLv3. To date, not that much has, and certainly nothing really important. Linux is GPLv2 and always will be (it's impossible to get all the contributors to agree to a license change), PostgreSQL is BSD-licensed, Apache has the BSD-like Apache license, etc.
The reason cloud/SaaS crap has gotten popular is simple: 1) software makers like it because it gives them a continuous revenue stream, so they just have to lock in the users and then they'll get monthly fees forever, and 2) these software makers target things that FOSS simply doesn't address very much or at all, such as specialized business software. Even Windows (OS) is trying to move to a SaaS model, and Adobe's been doing it for a while; it's all about being beneficial for the software companies. Users only do it because either they have little choice if they want to use that software, or they like the "low" monthly payments (and are too stupid to do basic math and realize they're paying more in the long run)., or they're running a business and thanks to wacky business accounting, it's easier to get the company to buy into a monthly service ad infinitum rather than shell out a higher one-time purchase fee (which is the same logic that makes businesses opt to lease expensive equipment rather than buy it, even though it costs them a lot more over time, but they don't care because it makes the short-term balance sheets look better and works better with taxes because they can deduct the expense instead of having to take depreciation).
Anyway, point is, FOSS licensing has absolutely nothing to do with the popularity of SaaS and cloud services; that's completely ridiculous.
The usefulness of Linux and the GNU software peaked for me some time ago. Like around 2010. Since then it has been down hill.
The desktop experience is lacking. The modern desktop environments are all mostly shit. KDE is slow and bloated and full of "semantic" crap. GNOME 3 is so goddamn awful in every way that it makes KDE look pristine! The smaller DEs aren't very usable.
Linux is still kind of shitty on laptops, even on those that are widely used by the Linux developers themselves. Suspend and hibernate rarely works well. The hardware support isn't always good, especially when it comes to graphics drivers, although this is shitty on desktops too.
Linux isn't even that good of an option for servers any longer. Systemd has caused me nothing but problems, and I know I'm not alone based on the many other complaints about it. I can't risk using a systemd-using Linux distro, which is pretty much all of them these days, for any server that's even remotely critical. I need to know that my servers will boot properly, and in the very rare case that they don't, that it will be easy to diagnose and fix the problem. Systemd, in my experience, is not compatible with those requirements. I've had it fail far more than any other init system I've ever used, and I've been working with many different types of Linux and UNIX systems for almost 3 decades now. Its problematic logging approach also makes it harder to figure out what is wrong.
These days I'm better off using OS X on my laptops and desktops, and FreeBSD on my servers. Both let me use the best of the GNU and other open source software, but without subjecting me to the worst parts of the current Linux ecosystem. I'd rather not use a proprietary system like OS X, but the Linux-oriented open source devs have left me no choice! What they've produced lately has been complete shit, from the init systems and service managers through to the desktop environments. I just can't bring myself to use it.