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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.
C++ was only 2 years old in 1985, and hardly anyone had heard of it. It was nowhere close to "becoming dominant."
Microsoft and Borland didn't introduce C++ compilers until after 1990, which is when it really took off.
C++ wasn't becoming a dominant language in 1985. That didn't happen until the IDEs supported it about 5 years later. Turbo C became Turbo C++ and then Borland C++. Microsoft was recommending Glockenspiel until they could get their own support done. 1990 really.
Was there, got the T-Shirt.
In 1985 C++ was not becoming a dominant language. C was certainly high on the list of "dominating" languages, but so was ASM (often C and assembly language for critical sections were used together) and so was Pascal, Modula-2, COBOL, Fortran, Lisp, etc, etc, etc and a bunch of languages (some still very much in use today), but C++... C++ was a newcomer and far from becoming dominant. It might be accurate to say that C++ was gaining support. It might be accurate to say that C++ was encouraging or spurring on the acceptance of the OOP paradigm (whatever that is), but no... I don't think that C++ was beginning to dominate anything at all at that point in time.
Stallman should have made a viable business, not a giant soapbox.
RedHat would disagree with you
Well, since Stallman would disagree with Redhat, Debian, Slackware, and anyone else that makes it easy to install "nonfree" software from distribution-supported repositories, I don't think that Stallman is in-agreement with how the Open Source movement has gone.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
And just because he had a few good ideas, and was about some aspects of free software, doesn't make him not a jackass...
Perhaps you can name off the visionary people of our time who do not get called jackasses on a regular basis
We're certainly worse off in that sense, but you can't lay that at the feet of the FSF. Without the GPL there would be vanishingly little free software in existence anywhere.
And what's so great about "a viable business"? A business has to put profits first. How would that have helped proliferate software freedom?
Hurray for a giant soapbox that has a higher purpose!
Am I the only one who initially read "the most prominent risks to software freedom today: Richard M. Stallman, and more."???
Let the controvercy begin (dramatic music).
The Linux kernel
has nothing to do with the FSF.
try again
In 1985 there was a revolt against copy protected software, people would not buy it. Now Digital Restrictions Malware is everywhere, most people have turned into cattle that will buy whatever the corporations are selling. Call DRM what it really is "Digital Restrictions Malware"
Stallman was always a PRAGMATIST, not an IDEALIST.
emacs and gcc were written to run on HPUX and Solaris long before linux existed
he knows full well that he will never achieve his ultimate goal of free software everywhere, but he has to push his agenda
Most people are idiots about non-free binary blobs. Your cards and motherboard are all filled with binary code, whether it's burned in at the factory or loaded at runtime is a moot point.
http://gizmodo.com/5853729/ple...
This Sig does not Exist.
Stallman has no problem with binary blobs as long as they cannot be updated without the user's consent, and as long as they cannot be used to abuse the user, e.g., by providing a backdoor or otherwise altering the rest of the system. In his own words:
He's wrong, though. There is a technical obstacle to creating an Android phone with his desired characteristics: THERE'S NO MONEY TO DO IT; as said before, it's a damn shame Stallman never created a viable business to fund his ideas. Instead, he has always relied on fools who don't comprehend what he's saying.
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.
Steve Jobs
Yup, the real actual threat of global thermonuclear war has turned into an idiot in a train who has his guns taken off him by some passengers.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I think he has already became a liability.
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. While it would be great if everyone will just share their code, avoid patents, etc... However in the real world, making software is expensive, and there are competitors willing to take your work and effort and offer more cost affordable services, because they didn't pay to do the work. So companies need to be pragmatic in their use of and sharing open source software. RMS takes a hardline approach on who disagrees with him are just being purely greedy. While real life is far more complex.
Many of us makes a living writing software, however we need supply limited to a degree so we can allow our value of our software be enough to make a living, especially if you are focusing on limited demand solutions.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Not every venture is a publicly owned business that is legally obligated to increase "shareholder value".
It takes money to pay for a sufficiently persuasive soapbox. That's why a viable business is valuable.
Software is worthless if you don't have the hardware to run it on; Stallman never appreciated the impending doom of closed hardware.
Or ... he realized that his own expertise was software and did as much as he possibly could to further software freedom, certainly more than any of us could have obligated him to do, working on his own dream of libre/freedom software by using the information age's infinite ability to distribute free software at nearly zero cost. He then, at some point, had to let someone else worry about the hardware, someone whose particular talents are in that direction, perhaps hoping that the growing free software movement would create a demand for equally free hardware on which to run it.
Unless you really took a look at the complexity of modern systems and expected a single man to radically change ALL of it... no, at some point you have to do what you're good at and encourage other like-minded people to do the same with their own skills.
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.
I still don't have free beer.
We've become far more sedentary than we used to be. First we went from having three to five tv stations to having dozens if not hundreds, then we enabled everyone to spend all of their waking hours doing the equivalent of browsing all of the magazines that could ever exist.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Stallman got to the point where the only Linux distributions he would endorse were tiny, obscure completely-free ones that were almost unusable before accounting for the lack of "nonfree" software.
That is not pragmatic.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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.
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.
Samba is not important? And many other examples. Better revise your argument.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
And the beneficiaries of the multi-trillion dollar economy that revolves around GPL licensed software.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Probably a better description: pragmatic idealist.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Entirely incorrect. 30 years ago you would have been on your way to Club Med instead of signing up with Ashley Madison.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Somebody doesn't call Steve Jobs a jackass?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Nothing except achieve world domination.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
How can you list off events from 1985 and leave off the most important one: Back To The Future came out and promised us that by 2015, we'd all have flying cars. Darn it, I'm still waiting!
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Back in 1985 I was learning 64K Tarbell BASIC on a Cromemco running CP/M.
Can you name, off the top of your head, any of the distributions that he endorses?
I can't, because literally the only time that I've read, seen, or otherwise heard of the distributions in question was in the article talking about his endorsement, and the subsequent problems trying to use those distributions to actually do anything.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Why difference does it make? He got your attention.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Can you name, off the top of your head, any of the distributions that he endorses?
While I'm not the greatest fan of RMS, I can name two. gNewSense and Trisquel (which RMS currently uses)
Of course the only reason I know about those is because of the articles mentioning RMS endorsements. Otherwise...is anybody other than RMS and a few other hardcore people working for the GNU/FSF using them? (The gNewSense people must be running their web server on a C64 or something)
Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, CentOS, those are distros with serious user numbers. Heck I'd bet even Slackware and Gentoo have more users than Trisquel or gNewSense.
Samba and what else? Samba being GPLv3 is not pushing people to use SaaS; that doesn't even make sense. "Oh no! We can't modify Samba in a way that can be Tivoized, so let's move our accounting to this new online could service!"
Sorry, you haven't proven your point at all.
You are an idiot. There is in fact a multi-trillion dollar industry revolving around Linux. Just ask Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon, the list goes on and on. This industry revolves around Linux because any alternative would be less efficient, less flexible, and less reliable. If the big boys could switch to BSD easily they would, trust me.[1] And Linux is just one of the important GPL projects involved. But the most important one by far.
[1] Apple switched to BSD from something much crappier, and would likely benefit from dropping the other shoe and switching to Linux.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Huh? How so? The only way this claim would be valid is if large amounts of FOSS software had actually adopted GPLv3.
He said "restrictions in Open Source systems, such as the Anti-TiVo addition", indicating it is not limited to that. Indeed limitations in many (not all because of the existence of the AGPL) free software systems (a kind of Open Source) include the necessity to distribute the source code for derived works with the binaries but if that program is hosted on a server and access is provided as a service then the distribution clauses do not apply.
By the way, show me where Linus said that software freedom doesn't matter. You can't, because he never said that, or anything like that.
By the way, RMS has his place in history, unlike you.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It's all designed to lock you in and extract monthly payments from you.
How so? I've never had any problems taking documents from Google Docs and opening them in LibreOffice or MS Office. I'm perfectly able to sync my DropBox files between my computers and even other cloud storage providers. I have also never had any problem moving my applications between Node.js hosting providers. What exactly is this "lock in" you are describing?
Those aren't SaaS providers. DropBox is cloud storage, not SaaS at all. Google Docs isn't representative of SaaS; Google's business model is about giving away services for free and using *you* as the product. SaaS is mainly about business software.
Those aren't SaaS providers.
Of course they are.
DropBox is cloud storage, not SaaS at all.
No you can't just redefine it because it disproves your argument.
Google Docs isn't representative of SaaS
No now you're moving the goalposts because your argument has been disproven.
SaaS is mainly about business software.
That is absolute garbage, nowhere is this claim at all substantiated.
Irrespective of all this, you still failed to back up your claim about "lock in". You were so intent on trying to redefine the term that you forgot to answer the question.
No you can't just redefine it because it disproves your argument.
I'm not redefining anything. Storage != software. I don't know where you ever got the idea that storage is anything like application software. If you're going to be this obtuse, then there's no point in continuing this discussion.
I'm not redefining anything. Storage != software.
And if services like DropBox were just storage then maybe you would have a point, but clearly they are not.
I don't know where you ever got the idea that storage is anything like application software.
I don't know where you got the idea that there was no application software driving platforms like DropBox.
If you're going to be this obtuse, then there's no point in continuing this discussion.
No I think it's quite clear you are pretending not to understand as a way to avoid the question I've asked twice already and you have continued to avoid. If cloud storage is too difficult a concept for you to understand I will give you other examples: Google/Apple/Bing Maps, Siri/Cortana Voice assistants. So the question remains, what is this "lock in"?
Now, the most ubiquitous computing devices are completely under the control of corporations and the governments who use the people's money to litter the lot with all manner of backdoors.
Things have gotten worse, and that's because the FSF is more dogmatic than practical; Stallman should have made a viable business, not a giant soapbox.
In 1985, Stallman had founded FSF while Queen Elizabeth was queen, Gorby ran the Soviet Union, Deng ran China. Castro Cuba and Kim Il Sung North Korea. Today, only Queen Elizabeth is still in the same job as she was then, just like Stallman is. All the others are either dead or retired.
Here's an article for you:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/...
You keep pointing at consumer stuff; that's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about business software like ERP.
Here's another (somewhat old though):
http://www.infoworld.com/artic...
Google for "SaaS lock-in"; there's countless IT industry articles talking about this. Many seem to think it's not a big problem though acknowledging there's a lot of concern about it, and the general advice is to warn people to make sure your ERP vendor lets you have access to your raw data and download it at any time, preferably with direct DB access or at least CSV downloads.
Here's an article for you: http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/...
Like any setup you can lock your data in to a particular provider if you store it in a proprietary format or restricted location from which you can't extract it. This is hardly a new thing with SaaS and is certainly not broadly applicable to SaaS in general, in fact it's really only applicable to a small niche.
You keep pointing at consumer stuff; that's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about business software like ERP.
Of course, because you said "SaaS" - which is a LOT more than just business ERP software.
Google for "SaaS lock-in"; there's countless IT industry articles talking about this.
It's a very limited subset of SaaS though, and hardly that it's all designed to lock you in and extract monthly payments from you.. Particularly when you consider that the recommendation is that you "make sure your ERP vendor lets you have access to your raw data and download it at any time", if you can do that then it clearly isn't "designed to lock you in" at all.
Actually, it is pragmatic. He knows that his endorsement does not carry a huge weight, but it carries some, so he uses it to draw attention. Which it did.
Oh what's this? RMS hating trolls skulking about with mod points?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
You're trolling anonymously. Very telling.
One thing about us FOSS "zealots" (aka "users") is that we're perfectly happy to promote what we do with our slashdot names, our real names, whatever name is normal for the place we're in. We don't need to hide and call names from the shadows and pretend we didn't really say it.
We believe in how we want to be treated by software. And we've been living in that world, lets see, well, for the most part since emacs and gcc! And linux of course was a giant step forwards overall. But it wouldn't have happened without the GNU environment, at least not as a mainstream thing.
We may be chirping away, but it is the happy chirps of us little birdies successfully using the tools we wanted, the tools we believe in, the tools that respect us and that we've been using for decades now.
~\_@< ~~~ Peep peep! ~~~
Hmm, lots of free software hating astroturfers with mod points slithering around tonight. I wonder if they are those losers who are paid to hang out on social forums and advance some agenda or other. Hard to imagine a lower form of internet life.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Woz ?
Woz was not a visionary. He was a genius engineer. Not the same thing.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes