Interview with Good Software Group Founder

The always non-political Tom Christiansen has written in with a nice little satire piece that you might want to read. I'll spare my own commentary on the piece.

[ The following is an interview by Hired, the monthly magazine devoted to commerce and trade, with Gilbert Oram Dawson, the founder of the Good Software Group. ]

Hired: Gilbert, it's been fifteen years since you single-handedly created the Good Software movement and its spokesman and umbrella organization, the Good Software Group. How does it feel to be sitting in the catbird seat, now that Good Software is all the rage?

Dawson: It's a great feeling to see just about everyone either using or else wanting to use Good Software. It proves that I am the visionary I always told you I was. But I'll tell you this: it hurts me that most people don't realize that without the Good Software Group, they probably wouldn't even *have* any Good Software. In fact, most people who use Good Software have barely even heard of the GSG. It really wounds me to be so under-appreciated, even after all the Good Software that I've personally created for the world.

Hired: Maybe that has something to do with the common misunderstanding of what Good Software is really about. Not everyone uses "good" the way you do, you know.

Dawson: Listen, I'm getting really tired of that old refrain. You get the feeling that these people have never looked into a dictionary before. If you check, you'll find that it is perfectly legitimate to use "good" to refer to saleable commodities, merchandise, or wares.

For example, here's one from the dictionary: "All that follows will hold true of any storable good, like cotton, wool, rubber, tobacco, wheat, coffee, sugar, oil, copper, or tin." Here's another: "As a steady, cheap, business-making consumer good,..the book is out." And here's one more: "For example, the existence of stocks of goods which might have to be reduced in some amount before additional resources were guided to the favoured good were ignored." Those are right there in the Oxford English Dictionary, so there's no room for argument. I'm right, and they're wrong.

I have invested many many years of my life in promoting Good Software. I am not about to change what I call it now simply because a bunch of idiots who never even finished grad school can't understand simple English words.

Hired: I'm sorry. I didn't intend to argue. Perhaps for the sake of our readers, Gilbert, you might please explain just what it is that you *do* mean by "good software"?

Dawson: Sure, I'd be glad to. Everything I'm about to say, though, is clearly explained on the Good Software Group's website, including just exactly what we mean when we say "Good Software". I don't always have time to explain just what a good is to everyone the GSG comes in contact with. I wish when they heard about Good Software--which is admittedly a slightly ambiguous abbreviation for a much more elaborate concept--that they would look at our website, or at the very least, pick up a dictionary. Words mean different things to different people and in different contexts. In my case, a word means just exactly what I say it means, and if people care about what I say it means, they should visit my website.

Hired: Um, and what *does* it mean?

Dawson: Oh right. It's so simple a child could understand it. Good Software is software that is made for the express purpose of facilitating the exchange of any sort of good or service for the purposes of commerce or trade.

Hired: And why did you form the Good Software Group?

Dawson: I'm really glad you asked that. I founded the GSG because at the time, our nation's E-conomy [The editors believe that the interviewee was referring to "electronic economy", but in retrospect, it's unclear. --Hired] was in serious straits, and I thought that a lot of the problem stemmed from wasted programming effort that did not produce Good Software. When programmers waste all their nights creating fritterware and useless eye candy, they are not actually *producing* anything. And without a tangible good for consumers to beg, barter, or steal, not only our E-conomy but also our economy stagnate. Think of the innumerable hours wasted on writing screen-savers. Where are the goods that come of that? Everything is just bits; nothing is tangible. If you're not writing Good Software, your effort has been lost to all of mankind, because you've made *nothing*.

Hired: Is that why you created the the GPL?

Dawson: Yes, that's *exactly* why I created the Good-Software Permanent Licence. The GPL is a way to use copyright law to make absolutely sure that the next bit of oh, I don't know, maybe manufacturing software, for example, can't ever be turned into something non-Good like a screen-saver. You really should go read about the GPL on our website, but what it amounts to is that Good Software can never be subverted into non-Good Software. That way any fixes or changes won't be lost forever to the business community that created the Good Software in the first place. By making sure that all effort on Good Software produces more Good Software, we as a people, a nation, an entire planet all benefit as commerce and trade continue to grow.

Hired: Do you feel that the Good Software Group is neglected when the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal mentions E-commerce but doesn't talk about how important Good Software and the GSG in particular have been to it?

Dawson: I don't care for the word "E-commerce", and you've put your finger on exactly why. It disrespects how important we are. Don't you realize that without Good Software, the E-conomy would be nowhere? It's the very foundation of the entire system! Oh, there isn't always a lot of our stuff there, but we were the guiding light behind it all. That's why I insist upon the term "Good/E-commerce" instead. However, if you really find that difficult, I shall permit you to use the term "E/Good-Commerce" in my presence as a tolerable but not a preferable alternative. The reason I don't care for it as much is that you've placed the Good part too far back, even though I really started it all. At least you give the GSG some credit that way, though.

Hired: I'm sorry -- I'll try to more careful from now on. I'd like to thank you for this interview. I'm sure that this will clarify for our readers your role in the goodware movement--

Dawson: Stop right there! I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the so-called "goodware" movement. I am the founding father of "Good Software" movement, which is completely different. "Goodware" is the despicable term used by a sham libertarian outfit who's trying to reach out to the not-for-profit community. When they say "goodware", they just mean software that's not bad. Can you believe it? Do you realize that they actually support letting people take what was originally Good Software and convert it into something that will never be used for one single good or service? That no longer will money change hands? Why, if everyone did that, our whole country would fall apart! That's not Good Software, and I shall have nothing to do with them. Fortunately, the GPL prohibits them from doing that with GPL'd software, which is why I strongly advocate slapping the GPL on every bit of software you can. It's the only way to keep those gun-toting libertarians off our backs and to keep our nation's E-conomy strong!

Hired: You know, Gilbert, if you were to legally change your name to add a second middle name like "Outspoken", then your initials would be a lot more meaningful for mail. Not only could you get mail sent to "good@gsg.com", but you could make your login a trademark to protect your unique use of the term "GOOD SOFTWARE".

Dawson: That's an intriguing idea -- it would certainly help me in my current legal battles with those pesky lawyers which the liberatian goodware people keep throwing up at me when I tell them they can't say "goodware" because I have prior art in using my own personal standard definition of "good".

But I'd really have to keep the old mail alias. For some reason, folks tend to put more weight into my writings under the current login. And it makes me feel good--er, I mean, important.

Comments

Fear of Funniness

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: How many FSFers does it take to define `free'?
A: THAT'S NOT FUNNY!

Moral of the Story.

[volsung]

The people who scream the loudest are the ones you should listen to the least.

I've observed this principle in everything from technical discussions to religious debates. The people who do all of the yelling are either ignorant and hope noise covers their lack of understanding, or they are hypocritical and trying to deflect attention from their own problems.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) the Internet lets these people spout off to thousands of people as opposed to the 2 or 3 who happened to be stuck next to them. The result is that people decide that the "gnashing of teeth" is normal behavior for the group, when in reality the majority of people are quite calm and normal. They just don't speak up that often.

The Free Software movement has just as many screaming groupies as any other mildly interesting organization. Just ignore them.

Childish.

[Per Abrahamsen]

Sigh.

Tom Christiansen got insulted when Stallman asked for a free replacement for Toms gratis Perl documentation for use in GNU.

Result: TC is trying by all means to rewrite history, so the whole "free software" thing is a devious plot invented by RMS to decieve people. He has tried various strawmans, used insults, and now he is trying satire. Not to mention his _other_ projects to "get even" on RMS, such as creating a GNU free BSD/Linux.

It doesn't change the fact that the free software community is both older than the GNU project, and much larger includes people who doesn't even consider GNU to be "real" free software, since the GPL contains too many restrictions.

What a poor satire

[itp]

I don't understand what Tom has against RMS, but I wish he would come right out and say it. This "satire" was merely insulting, rather than clever, and it failed to make any point, except that Tom has a problem with RMS.

Yes, Stallman can be annoying. Yes, he can be stubborn. Yes, sometimes we all wish he'd just shut up. But he's an idealist, he believes in something, and he follows his beliefs. If you look at what RMS has done, you won't find any ulterior motives, or hidden agendas. He believes in free software, he promotes free software (not himself, as many believe), and most of all, he has worked for (and written!) free software.

Please, compare the rude, offensive, selfish nature of this post with the eloquence of RMS's post of several days ago. I think you'll find a world of difference.

Standard disclaimers: I don't work for the FSF or GNU, I have an email address @gnu.org because I write free software. My beliefs are my own, yada yada yada.

--
Ian Peters

I recently experienced what he has satired

[killbill]

In a slashdot article last week, I posted a question trying to understand the logic of the root philosophies of RMS camp (versus the ESR camp, which I understand).

My question (which basically boiled down to "if I can trade the program I just wrote to a company in exchange for a mini-van, how can you say it has no value?"), resulted in a caustic email from an individual that apparently felt strongly enough to write me and accuse me of first being an idiot and secondly never reading any RMS material.

Note that as an author of an LGPL released package (backburner, see freshmeat.net), this is a pretty silly accusation to make (the never having read the RMS material that is... he may be right about the idiot part :).

When I pressed him for explanations of the parts of the philosopy that confused me... he kept simply pointing me to the web site.

When I tried to get clarifications on the parts of the logic that escape me, his responses alternated between "if you can't see it, you must be stupid" and "it's on the website, go read it", and "it says what I said it says because I said so".

Plus, the whole exchange was pretty mean spirited.

So anyway, I have experienced exactly what this article is parodying... so like most better parody, I can't decide if it is funny or disturbing...

Please... no email flames already...

Bill Kilgallon

Why such animosity?

[leandrod]

I wonder why both ESR and Tom have such animosity against RMS and the FSF. Anything that RMS says is criticized by then, often in personal tones.

Everyone and your father know that RMS is a
polemist sparing no one, but his critics are always to the point, never personal -- even when he calls Tim O'Reilly a "parasite", he has before him the objective situation of non-free documentation about free software.

Not so with Tom. He seems to grudge that many people do consider GNU GPL the ultimate free software license. Also ESR seems to grudge the moral stance ESR has taken outside of the Open Source thing.

I consider this one to be the most detrimental issue in free software politics these days. It is highly visible to the outside world and generates much ill will. Even I myself, a non-coder with no personal interest in the matter, have been personally attacked with dirty words by both ESR and Tom while trying to write them about these issue, showing that the thing has gone much farther than the uninterested ideas discussion.

This has become like a personal vendetta agains RMS, and as such quite childish and destructive. Both Tom and ESR claim that it is not like that, but then it really seeems like that -- and appearances are enough to poison a community. Let's > /dev/null all this personal nitpickings! If at least they were really fun...

At least somebody said it...

[_Nad_]

Fine, RMS has done some useful things for the open source movement, that's not in contention. But who doesn't get tired of his ranting about Gnu/Linux or "Free" Software. Regardless of what you think of Stallman, someone should be able to poke a little fun without everyone getting up in arms. It's a revolutionary new concept known as humor, some of you should try it.