Stop believing that it's okay to ignore "eminently sensible advice" and you'll encourage others to do the same. Nobody is always pleasing to everyone. Your criticism against RMS here ends up reading as an ad hominem attack without evidence or a backhanded compliment which you think is more important to raise than the substance of the arguments presented. There's no reason to despair unless you are looking for a reason to do nothing but throw up your hands.
Eben Moglen is also giving a series of talks about what "Edward Snowden [has] done to change the course of human history", "the evolution of surveillance since World War II threaten democracy", and what it means now "that information can be both so powerful and so easily spread". One hopes you'll take these talks for what's offered in the talks.
Losing the freedom to read is never a wise choice to make and certainly something to be politically active about. The world doesn't have to end for significant bad things to occur which demand our active principled disagreement and action. This issue isn't just about what one chooses to use on their site, it's about what users under the digital restrictions have to live with to make their computers behave in the way they want to. Saying one doesn't have to use digital restrictions management on their site is taking the weapon-user's point of view instead of the reader's point of view. Your attempt to marginalize the reader by comparing the objection to the world ending is reduction by hyperbole.
Asking what we're getting in exchange for the acceptance of DRM means one's priorities are misplaced—this question is entirely misplaced because nothing should restrict the reader. Trying to bargain for better terms after accepting a deal signals profound ignorance of how to get what readers need: the right to read.
can I shove this in the face of windows fanboys who say that anyone could submit anything they want to Linux and you don't really know what's in there?
The fork of the Linux kernel maintained by Linus Torvalds contains non-free software. The Linux kernel fork maintained by the Linux Libre team is based on that kernel and "remov[es] software that is included without source code, with obfuscated or obscured source code, under non-Free Software licenses, that do not permit you to change the software so that it does what you wish, and that induces or requires you to install additional pieces of non-Free Software".
"I was talking to a senior government official of this government about that outcome and he said well you know we've come to realize that we need a robust social graph of the United States. That's how we're going to connect new information to old information. I said let's just talk about the constitutional implications of this for a moment. You're talking about taking us from the society we have always known, which we quaintly refer to as a free society, to a society in which the United States government keeps a list of everybody every American knows." —Eben Moglen, "Innovation Under Austerity"
Moglen reminds us in his talks about how right Richard Stallman (RMS) is, and how we need to do the work of sharing what RMS teaches to others. RMS was right (as per usual) we need software freedom more than ever. Social action based on an ethical grounding (not mere technical convenience or speedy development) is exactly what this situation calls for. I hope everyone will take the time to read or listen to Moglen's insightful talks and take them seriously. They're deeply engrossing and filled with interesting history, so much so that they reward repeated listening and social action.
I don't know why someone would make the choice to run this story with the wrong logo attached to it, but I hope Slashdot will correct the error. It is still unfair to misrepresent RMS's opinion.
"I've seen articles that call me "The father of open source". Now what use is it to be talked about if I'm associated with the wrong views! So I sent a letter to the editor saying, "If I'm the father of open source it was conceived through artificial insemination using stolen sperm without my knowledge or consent"." —Richard Stallman, August 5, 2013, New York City University, New York City, USA
I believe he'd be the first to point out to you that you are misattributing the movement he started (as he frequently mentions in his talks such as this one around 58m25s including being talked about with the wrong views at around 1h). RMS wrote the GPL and started the GNU Project so that users could live in freedom enjoying the freedoms to run, share, and modify computer software; the very freedoms that the open source movement was formed to never bring up so the open source proponents could pursue mere technical practicality (a term he describes well around 57m10s) and talk about "licensing terms" as you describe—free of ethical issues. The way you put it makes the two movements seem like some insigificant name difference for no particular reason, but that's completely untrue. Giving the wrong philosophical views credit happens elsewhre too and correcting this misapprehension is the basis for giving GNU a share of the credit when discussing a GNU/Linux system.
Careful speech and well-explained distinctions are among rms's hallmarks—he speaks and writes with a precision not often found these days. The GNU Project has helpfully collected a list of terms to avoid, terms people often speak or write without understanding how their own thoughts could be pure nonsense or clear misstatement. It behooves people describing him and his work to get these terms right. After all, it's only fair that one not misrepresent his views when describing him.
Perhaps you'd benefit from watching a few of his speeches so you can better understand what he says and thinks, then perhaps you won't make the errors you made in your post.
I think it's a great idea to support independant media, and I'm willing to do so with my money.
But I want something in exchange: I want at least a DRM-free copy of the work licensed to let me at least transcode the work and share the work with anyone, share the work with them at any time, and share the work in any way I wish. I see nothing in this offer that specifies what license the work will be under when it is released.
Where can I find the license for the finished work? I would not want to contribute to a work that doesn't respect my freedom to share.
No, Stallman has never "advocate[d] open source software over any proprietary software" as he is not now nor has he ever been a part of the open source movement.
Perhaps if you understood the differences you'd understand why "various foreign governments already hav[ing] access to the Windows source" doesn't respect a user's software freedom (not even for the governments that are allowed to read said source code as merely having and reading source code is insufficient to be considered "free software" or "open source" despite the confusion with the latter) and therefore does not actually address any of the salient issues he's raising. One of his recent talks, "What Makes Digital Inclusion Good or Bad?" from October 19, 2011 covers this ground and related issues quite well.
First off, copying is not theft. You're making an appeal to authority without considering what that authority says. As the FSF points out, "Unauthorized copying is forbidden by copyright law in many circumstances (not all!), but being forbidden doesn't make it wrong. In general, laws don't define right and wrong. Laws, at their best, attempt to implement justice. If the laws (the implementation) don't fit our ideas of right and wrong (the spec), the laws are what should change.".
Second, the key to understanding how GPL copyright infringement lawsuits are so different from proprietor's copyright infringement lawsuits or threats of copyright infringement lawsuits is to examine the effect on the user. The GPL says you're free to do things regulated by copyright law including copying so long as you don't deny recipients the same freedoms to do the same. Proprietors, on the other hand, deny recipients those freedoms; Toshiba is flatly disallowing anyone who's not an authorized dealer from sharing copies of their manuals. Again, just because a law says copying is forbidden by default doesn't make copying wrong. Thus despite using the same underlying copyright system, the outcome for the user is radically different and the public's support for that underlying system should reflect what we need that system to say. The conditions the GPL grants licensees are far more amenable to the public than the antisocial deal proprietors offer.
Phoronix.com just published an article called "AMD To Drop Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000 Catalyst Support and never mentions software freedom in their article. The proprietor changes but the freedom issues remain the same.
Software freedom is important for its own sake. You're better off with a less functional free implementation than a more powerful and reliable proprietary implementation in numerous practical ways programmers and users have known for decades.
If the proprietor stops supporting something and they're all you've got to depend on, you're out of luck left with an ugly choice to run increasingly obsolete code or (apparently needlessly) do without that functionality at all. Proprietors control your computer and tell you what you can do with it. Free software gives you the freedom to control your own computer. One can learn to program and understand the Nouveau source code: maintain the code to work on more OSes and work with more hardware, free from the fear of DRM (digital restrictions management). If you're not a programmer, like most computer users aren't, you can still help the effort by giving programmers what they need to help you in return. Often that's money, equipment, good bug reports, documentation translations, and writing documentation for the software.
We're better off relying on each other in freedom than we are depending on a proprietor. Socially, we can't build a better future for ourselves by relying on secret software. We should be allowed to fully own and control our computers and we'll get there with software freedom.
Nvidia should have told their customers how to fully use the equipment they sold. Nouveau hackers are remedying that deficiency. I'm grateful for the valuable work Nouveau hackers are doing for all of us.
As Stallman explains in his complete talk (and using a more reasonable interpretation of the quote), the situation we face is worse than the average person not being able to comprehend published patents; people skilled in the field are unable to read patents. And yes, patents are a problem in part because doing the natural thing to comply with the law renders one at more risk should one lose a patent infringement lawsuit (knowing infringement can bring triple damages). Patents are also a problem because, as Stallman also points out, not all patents are published. The obviousness argument is a matter of degree, not of principle. Principled arguments, such as what Stallman explains, strike at the root of the issue.
Even the patent holders often can't recognize just what their patents mean. For instance, there's somebody named Paul Heckel who released a program for displaying a lot of data on a small screen, and based on a couple of the ideas in that program he got a couple of patents.
I once tried to find a simple way to describe what claim 1 of one of those patents covered. I found that I couldn't find any simpler way of saying it than what was in the patent itself; and that sentence, I couldn't manage to keep it all in my mind at once, no matter how hard I tried.
And Heckel couldn't follow it either, because when he saw HyperCard, all he noticed was it was nothing like his program. It didn't occur to him that the way his patent was written it might prohibit HyperCard; but his lawyer had that idea, so he threatened Apple. And then he threatened Apple's customers, and eventually Apple made a settlement with him which is secret, so we don't know who really won. And this is just an illustration of how hard it is for anybody to understand what a patent does or doesn't prohibit.
In fact, I once gave this speech and Heckel was in the audience. And at this point he jumped up and said, "That's not true, I just didn't know the scope of my protection." And I said, "Yeah, that's what I said," at which point he sat down and that was the end of my experience being heckled by Heckel. If I had said no, he probably would have found a way to argue with me.
Software can be fixed if its license grants users the freedoms of free software. Therefore, users are better off with a broken free software program than a reliable proprietary program. The free software can be inspected, repaired, improved, and distributed instead of being under the thumb of the proprietor.
Not a straw man at all. I'm simultaneously grateful for the freedom non-copylefted free software conveys to me and others and I see how these licenses mean contributing to proprietors like they were charities. Copylefted free software licenses such as the GPL and AGPL don't allow proprietary derivatives. This distinction gets to the heart of the difference between the free software and open source movements: the former movement distinguishes among licenses using "copyleft" because the free software movement wants to preserve software freedom for all computer users. The open source movement makes no distinction akin to "copyleft". So from a free software movement activist's perspective proprietor objections to the GPL and AGPL don't matter because proprietors have no intention of respecting user's software freedom. The open source movement isn't concerned with user's software freedom at all because that movement was founded to speak primarily to business software developmental methodology.
Freedom of choice doesn't help anyone understand what are critical points in the philosophical differences between the free software and open source movements. Freedom of choice won't help anyone see how the two movements philosophical differences have dramatically different consequences. Freedom of choice misframes a debate around what options a licensor has by positioning all licensing power alternatives as equivalent.
In other words, any FLOSS license is objectionable to those who wish to violate that license and make unauthorized derivatives. The AGPL and GPL, in particular, require equal treatment and reciprocity for all distributors. This is not onerous on the user or developer.
As to not seeing a "battle", that language overstates the case but you do probably see the differences among the licenses and you have apparently made your choice. Your choice is no more or less political than someone who chooses a strongly copylefted free software license such as the AGPL. Freedom of choice doesn't really explain anything. Choices are present in proprietary licenses too, thus highlighting how freedom of choice is a scam: The user's software freedoms are not respected nor is the open source development methodology present.
I recommend the AGPL version 3 or later; this license will preserve the user's software freedom and keep users on a level playing field with you. I also recommend enforcing your license. The Software Freedom Conservancy can help you enforcing your license with the assistance of experienced GPL enforcers. As you probably already know, if the program is proprietary nobody will be able to determine if the program is DRM-free or not. If any distributor discriminates against free software, you can choose not to do business with them.
I was hoping to find a Pirate Party response to Richard Stallman's essay on how the Swedish Pirate Party's proposed short term of copyright creates a needlessly unequal opportunity between copylefted free software and proprietary software upon entry into the public domain. In the same essay Stallman proposes a fix that resolves the unequal opportunity.
It's the unequal results upon entering the PD that is unfair: Proprietors don't release source code so upon entry into the public domain their works would be redistributed as binaries without users being free to inspect or modify the work. By contrast users would be free to incorporate the formerly copyleft free software program. As Stallman points out, "the Pirate Party's proposal would give proprietary software developers the use of GPL-covered source code after 5 years, but it would not give free software developers the use of proprietary source code, not after 5 years or even 50 years". As he mentions, proprietary programs that timebomb themselves might remain useless even to users who merely want to run the program. Stallman wrote, "I could support a law that would make GPL-covered software's source code available in the public domain after 5 years, provided it has the same effect on proprietary software's source code. After all, copyleft is a means to an end (users' freedom), not an end in itself. And I'd rather not be an advocate for a stronger copyright.".
We should strive for equal opportunity for use upon entry into the PD but the Pirate Party's recommended copyright policy would allow proprietors to exempt themselves from the freeing effect of entry into the PD. Stallman's idea of requiring proprietary software escrow when the binaries are released seems eminently sensible to me. Then users would be on equal footing with formerly copylefted free software source and formerly proprietary software source entering the public domain.
If anyone can point me to a good response to Stallman's essay on this written by a Pirate Party representative I'd appreciate it. I've read the/. thread on Stallman's article and I didn't come across such a pointer.
There are very few Slashdot posters who distinguish freedom from skill, appreciate freedom for its own sake, and acknowledge that real life requires us all to depend on each other as you apparently do. I see many more posters who post arguments based on myths of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps, not being entitled to anything one isn't forced to need, and not seeing force outside of a loaded weapon aimed at someone.
I would rather have an eternity of software freedom at hand. The Linux kernel is obviously robust, portable, capable, scalable, and proven. But in some distributions Linux is not entirely free because Linus Torvalds' fork contains non-free binary-only software (see the linux-libre project for a fully free Linux kernel). Also I'd hope for software freedom and not a particular approach (this OS, that kernel, etc.) because there are other free software programs that shouldn't be forgotten just because they're not a part of a complete GNU/Linux system.
Somewhat similarly regarding the headline for this article on/.: I don't think the true hinge of this issue is nationality or incorporation. These aspects are the true hinge of trouble in other issues (wars and suppressing democracy, to name a couple issues more significant than free software), but here I think that software freedom needs to be the focus worldwide. As time goes on I think more people will realize that software freedom can have life and death implications for ordinary people, particularly where people wear medical devices inside their body without any control over that device's function or any ability to inspect what that device does.
IBM stands alone in the world of patents because IBM holds the most patents. This fact places IBM in a unique position: IBM can leverage the power of cross-licensing more than any other patent holder. This is a formidable power. For IBM the trouble of licensing patents is mostly hypothetical. In "Think" magazine, #5, 1990, IBM estimated the value of this cost. As the link above says:
The value IBM gets from cross-licensing measures the trouble that the patent system would cause IBM if IBM could not avoid it. IBM's estimate is that the trouble could easily be ten times the good one can expect from one's own patents--even for a company with 9,000 of them.
IBM doesn't pursue patent lawsuits because IBM can pressure virtually any patent holder into cross-licensing. IBM isn't failing to sue because they're choosing to take a defensive position (whether reluctantly or not). IBM's power here puts the lie to the 'lone inventor' myth the patent system sometime engenders just as it puts the lie to any "protection" a small software developer would gain should they discover IBM believes they're competing with IBM.
A transcript of Richard Stallman's talk on this problem (including mention of the above article) is online (1, 2), as are audio and video recordings of him giving this talk. I highly suggest reading and/or watching the entire talk because the talk is highly informative, and he is clear to separate his work on free software from the trouble with software patents. The danger of software patents "relates to the question of whether the programs are free or not, the dangers of the same for all software developers".
GCC consultants charge hundreds per hour for their work. Their "recipe" is skilled programmers doing hard work for paying clients.
It sounds like the answer to your question is to either write all of your own code or build on some non-copylefted FLOSS licensed code. There are people out there willing to treat your business like a charity and give code to you, but GPL hackers aren't. Maybe you should choose another line of work entirely.
I doubt that a lack of e-readers was the driving issue. I think it was King's attitude and that hardly anyone wants to invest in an incomplete story (you'll never know if the rest of the chapters will come until they're published).
As for how to address the public, I think Richard Stallman got it right back in 2001 when he was giving a talk at MIT and someone in the audience asked him a question about Stephen King's experiment:
QUESTION: [A comment and and question about free downloading and about Stephen King's attempt to market one of his novels serially over the web.]
STALLMAN: Yes, it's interesting to know what he did and what happened. When I first heard about that, I was elated. I thought, maybe he was taking a step towards a world that is not based on trying to maintain an iron grip on the public. Then I saw that he had actually written to ask people to pay. To explain what he did, he was publishing a novel as a serial, by installments, and he said, âoeIf I get enough money, I'll release more.â But the request he wrote was hardly a request. It brow-beat the reader. It said, âoeIf you don't pay, then you're evil. And if there are too many of you who are evil, then I'm just going to stop writing this.â
Well, clearly, that's not the way to make the public feel like sending you money. You've got to make them love you, not fear you.
SPEAKER: The details were that he required a certain percentage â" I don't know the exact percentage, around 90% sounds correct â" of people to send a certain amount of money, which, I believe, was a dollar or two dollars, or somewhere in that order of magnitude. You had to type in your name and your e-mail address and some other information to get to download it and if that percentage of people was not reached after the first chapter, he said that he would not release another chapter. It was very antagonistic to the public downloading it.
So, with Louis C.K.'s recording, the illicit downloads didn't stop him from making a profit of $200,000 which is slightly less than he spent on the endeavor ("The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website."). I see no indication Louis C.K. is going after the infringers legally, another huge difference between dealing with him directly and buying through some media multinational. It's not even clear how many of the infringers paid anyway, nor is it clear how many of the infringers would not have paid no matter the price. Stephen King, on the other hand, browbeat the readers into attempted compliance and failed to convince enough people to keep King happy. The story ended quickly and I don't see King trying this again with a more reasonable attitude.
All proprietors have had this power since people ran proprietary software on networked computers, regardless of OS. All that's required is a networked computer (commonplace since Internet access became popular) and a program running with sufficient privilege to do something (easy to do with any installer, probably easy to gain this level of access post-install because most users run with admin logins and will type in their password when prompted). Thus all the insecurities and lack of exclusive control people are talking about in other subthreads have existed for a long time. As long as you ran software you had no permission to inspect, modify, and share, you may have never been the sole admin of your computer. And you'll never know the details of the controls the proprietors possess.
Slashdot Mirror
Stop believing that it's okay to ignore "eminently sensible advice" and you'll encourage others to do the same. Nobody is always pleasing to everyone. Your criticism against RMS here ends up reading as an ad hominem attack without evidence or a backhanded compliment which you think is more important to raise than the substance of the arguments presented. There's no reason to despair unless you are looking for a reason to do nothing but throw up your hands.
Eben Moglen is also giving a series of talks about what "Edward Snowden [has] done to change the course of human history", "the evolution of surveillance since World War II threaten democracy", and what it means now "that information can be both so powerful and so easily spread". One hopes you'll take these talks for what's offered in the talks.
As Richard Stallman has been pointing out for at least 2 years now in his talks; proprietors have not given up on DRM. Spotify (audio) has digital restrictions management (DRM) in it. The FSF's Defective by Design campaign reminds us of many examples where DRM is up and running: "In 2009, Amazon remotely deleted copies of George Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984, that were distributed through the Kindle store. This chilling example of potentially malicious behavior would have never been possible without DRM.". Netflix uses DRM and Netflix is a proponent of HTML5's Encrypted Media Extensions, the name for the mechanism by which DRM is standardized through the W3C. Steam won't let users sell their games or share games with a friend after playing them and if one tries to do so anyhow, Steam will disable one's account, thus taking all of that user's Steam games away.
I would hesitate to call this "[winning] the DRM wars" and I would not want to know what losing looks like. This state of affairs is why Defective by Design campaigns to educate users on what DRM is, how DRM hurts users, and to politically organize to fight DRM.
Losing the freedom to read is never a wise choice to make and certainly something to be politically active about. The world doesn't have to end for significant bad things to occur which demand our active principled disagreement and action. This issue isn't just about what one chooses to use on their site, it's about what users under the digital restrictions have to live with to make their computers behave in the way they want to. Saying one doesn't have to use digital restrictions management on their site is taking the weapon-user's point of view instead of the reader's point of view. Your attempt to marginalize the reader by comparing the objection to the world ending is reduction by hyperbole.
Asking what we're getting in exchange for the acceptance of DRM means one's priorities are misplaced—this question is entirely misplaced because nothing should restrict the reader. Trying to bargain for better terms after accepting a deal signals profound ignorance of how to get what readers need: the right to read.
The fork of the Linux kernel maintained by Linus Torvalds contains non-free software. The Linux kernel fork maintained by the Linux Libre team is based on that kernel and "remov[es] software that is included without source code, with obfuscated or obscured source code, under non-Free Software licenses, that do not permit you to change the software so that it does what you wish, and that induces or requires you to install additional pieces of non-Free Software".
So you could point anyone running non-free software to the FSF's list of free GNU/Linux system distributions and to the guidelines where one can understand how the FSF decides what to put on that list.
"I was talking to a senior government official of this government about that outcome and he said well you know we've come to realize that we need a robust social graph of the United States. That's how we're going to connect new information to old information. I said let's just talk about the constitutional implications of this for a moment. You're talking about taking us from the society we have always known, which we quaintly refer to as a free society, to a society in which the United States government keeps a list of everybody every American knows." —Eben Moglen, "Innovation Under Austerity"
Eben Moglen gave a talk where he warned us about a conversation he had with an American government official who wanted a "robust social graph" of Americans. And again at Moglen's re:publica talk as Nicole Brydson reminds us. Of course, I'd prefer to point to a copy of this talk in a format friendly to free software, but I don't know of one.
Moglen reminds us in his talks about how right Richard Stallman (RMS) is, and how we need to do the work of sharing what RMS teaches to others. RMS was right (as per usual) we need software freedom more than ever. Social action based on an ethical grounding (not mere technical convenience or speedy development) is exactly what this situation calls for. I hope everyone will take the time to read or listen to Moglen's insightful talks and take them seriously. They're deeply engrossing and filled with interesting history, so much so that they reward repeated listening and social action.
Slashdot is currently running this story with the logo of the Open Source Initiative—an organization RMS has never been a part of, did not start, and which offers a different philosophy that does not agree with the philosophy of the older free software movement Stallman did start.
I don't know why someone would make the choice to run this story with the wrong logo attached to it, but I hope Slashdot will correct the error. It is still unfair to misrepresent RMS's opinion.
"I've seen articles that call me "The father of open source". Now what use is it to be talked about if I'm associated with the wrong views! So I sent a letter to the editor saying, "If I'm the father of open source it was conceived through artificial insemination using stolen sperm without my knowledge or consent"." —Richard Stallman, August 5, 2013, New York City University, New York City, USA
I believe he'd be the first to point out to you that you are misattributing the movement he started (as he frequently mentions in his talks such as this one around 58m25s including being talked about with the wrong views at around 1h). RMS wrote the GPL and started the GNU Project so that users could live in freedom enjoying the freedoms to run, share, and modify computer software; the very freedoms that the open source movement was formed to never bring up so the open source proponents could pursue mere technical practicality (a term he describes well around 57m10s) and talk about "licensing terms" as you describe—free of ethical issues. The way you put it makes the two movements seem like some insigificant name difference for no particular reason, but that's completely untrue. Giving the wrong philosophical views credit happens elsewhre too and correcting this misapprehension is the basis for giving GNU a share of the credit when discussing a GNU/Linux system.
Careful speech and well-explained distinctions are among rms's hallmarks—he speaks and writes with a precision not often found these days. The GNU Project has helpfully collected a list of terms to avoid, terms people often speak or write without understanding how their own thoughts could be pure nonsense or clear misstatement. It behooves people describing him and his work to get these terms right. After all, it's only fair that one not misrepresent his views when describing him.
Perhaps you'd benefit from watching a few of his speeches so you can better understand what he says and thinks, then perhaps you won't make the errors you made in your post.
I think it's a great idea to support independant media, and I'm willing to do so with my money.
But I want something in exchange: I want at least a DRM-free copy of the work licensed to let me at least transcode the work and share the work with anyone, share the work with them at any time, and share the work in any way I wish. I see nothing in this offer that specifies what license the work will be under when it is released.
Where can I find the license for the finished work? I would not want to contribute to a work that doesn't respect my freedom to share.
No, Stallman has never "advocate[d] open source software over any proprietary software" as he is not now nor has he ever been a part of the open source movement.
Stallman founded the free software movement over 10 years before the open source movement began. Since the open source movement began he has spent time explaining how the open source philosophy and practical outcomes are distinctly different from his older movement (an older version of this essay is also online). Every talk I've heard him give contains a cogent explanation about these differences.
Perhaps if you understood the differences you'd understand why "various foreign governments already hav[ing] access to the Windows source" doesn't respect a user's software freedom (not even for the governments that are allowed to read said source code as merely having and reading source code is insufficient to be considered "free software" or "open source" despite the confusion with the latter) and therefore does not actually address any of the salient issues he's raising. One of his recent talks, "What Makes Digital Inclusion Good or Bad?" from October 19, 2011 covers this ground and related issues quite well.
First off, copying is not theft. You're making an appeal to authority without considering what that authority says. As the FSF points out, "Unauthorized copying is forbidden by copyright law in many circumstances (not all!), but being forbidden doesn't make it wrong. In general, laws don't define right and wrong. Laws, at their best, attempt to implement justice. If the laws (the implementation) don't fit our ideas of right and wrong (the spec), the laws are what should change.".
Second, the key to understanding how GPL copyright infringement lawsuits are so different from proprietor's copyright infringement lawsuits or threats of copyright infringement lawsuits is to examine the effect on the user. The GPL says you're free to do things regulated by copyright law including copying so long as you don't deny recipients the same freedoms to do the same. Proprietors, on the other hand, deny recipients those freedoms; Toshiba is flatly disallowing anyone who's not an authorized dealer from sharing copies of their manuals. Again, just because a law says copying is forbidden by default doesn't make copying wrong. Thus despite using the same underlying copyright system, the outcome for the user is radically different and the public's support for that underlying system should reflect what we need that system to say. The conditions the GPL grants licensees are far more amenable to the public than the antisocial deal proprietors offer.
Phoronix.com just published an article called "AMD To Drop Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000 Catalyst Support and never mentions software freedom in their article. The proprietor changes but the freedom issues remain the same.
Software freedom is important for its own sake. You're better off with a less functional free implementation than a more powerful and reliable proprietary implementation in numerous practical ways programmers and users have known for decades.
If the proprietor stops supporting something and they're all you've got to depend on, you're out of luck left with an ugly choice to run increasingly obsolete code or (apparently needlessly) do without that functionality at all. Proprietors control your computer and tell you what you can do with it. Free software gives you the freedom to control your own computer. One can learn to program and understand the Nouveau source code: maintain the code to work on more OSes and work with more hardware, free from the fear of DRM (digital restrictions management). If you're not a programmer, like most computer users aren't, you can still help the effort by giving programmers what they need to help you in return. Often that's money, equipment, good bug reports, documentation translations, and writing documentation for the software.
We're better off relying on each other in freedom than we are depending on a proprietor. Socially, we can't build a better future for ourselves by relying on secret software. We should be allowed to fully own and control our computers and we'll get there with software freedom.
Nvidia should have told their customers how to fully use the equipment they sold. Nouveau hackers are remedying that deficiency. I'm grateful for the valuable work Nouveau hackers are doing for all of us.
As Stallman explains in his complete talk (and using a more reasonable interpretation of the quote), the situation we face is worse than the average person not being able to comprehend published patents; people skilled in the field are unable to read patents. And yes, patents are a problem in part because doing the natural thing to comply with the law renders one at more risk should one lose a patent infringement lawsuit (knowing infringement can bring triple damages). Patents are also a problem because, as Stallman also points out, not all patents are published. The obviousness argument is a matter of degree, not of principle. Principled arguments, such as what Stallman explains, strike at the root of the issue.
Just as with the IBM patent story on /. a couple of days ago, the FSF and its friends have taught us about the dangers of software patents years ago.
The heart of that IBM story IBM told us about in a story in their promotional magazine called "Think" magazine from 1990 and Richard Stallman taught us about the consequences of this problem in his talk "The Danger of Software Patents" (which you can find in the FSF audio and video archives).
The heart of the danger for computer users (regardless of what you use a computer to do) was addressed by Stallman in a portion of his talk concerning Paul Heckel's patents:
Software can be fixed if its license grants users the freedoms of free software. Therefore, users are better off with a broken free software program than a reliable proprietary program. The free software can be inspected, repaired, improved, and distributed instead of being under the thumb of the proprietor.
Not a straw man at all. I'm simultaneously grateful for the freedom non-copylefted free software conveys to me and others and I see how these licenses mean contributing to proprietors like they were charities. Copylefted free software licenses such as the GPL and AGPL don't allow proprietary derivatives. This distinction gets to the heart of the difference between the free software and open source movements: the former movement distinguishes among licenses using "copyleft" because the free software movement wants to preserve software freedom for all computer users. The open source movement makes no distinction akin to "copyleft". So from a free software movement activist's perspective proprietor objections to the GPL and AGPL don't matter because proprietors have no intention of respecting user's software freedom. The open source movement isn't concerned with user's software freedom at all because that movement was founded to speak primarily to business software developmental methodology.
Freedom of choice doesn't help anyone understand what are critical points in the philosophical differences between the free software and open source movements. Freedom of choice won't help anyone see how the two movements philosophical differences have dramatically different consequences. Freedom of choice misframes a debate around what options a licensor has by positioning all licensing power alternatives as equivalent.
In other words, any FLOSS license is objectionable to those who wish to violate that license and make unauthorized derivatives. The AGPL and GPL, in particular, require equal treatment and reciprocity for all distributors. This is not onerous on the user or developer.
As to not seeing a "battle", that language overstates the case but you do probably see the differences among the licenses and you have apparently made your choice. Your choice is no more or less political than someone who chooses a strongly copylefted free software license such as the AGPL. Freedom of choice doesn't really explain anything. Choices are present in proprietary licenses too, thus highlighting how freedom of choice is a scam: The user's software freedoms are not respected nor is the open source development methodology present.
I recommend the AGPL version 3 or later; this license will preserve the user's software freedom and keep users on a level playing field with you. I also recommend enforcing your license. The Software Freedom Conservancy can help you enforcing your license with the assistance of experienced GPL enforcers. As you probably already know, if the program is proprietary nobody will be able to determine if the program is DRM-free or not. If any distributor discriminates against free software, you can choose not to do business with them.
I was hoping to find a Pirate Party response to Richard Stallman's essay on how the Swedish Pirate Party's proposed short term of copyright creates a needlessly unequal opportunity between copylefted free software and proprietary software upon entry into the public domain. In the same essay Stallman proposes a fix that resolves the unequal opportunity.
It's the unequal results upon entering the PD that is unfair: Proprietors don't release source code so upon entry into the public domain their works would be redistributed as binaries without users being free to inspect or modify the work. By contrast users would be free to incorporate the formerly copyleft free software program. As Stallman points out, "the Pirate Party's proposal would give proprietary software developers the use of GPL-covered source code after 5 years, but it would not give free software developers the use of proprietary source code, not after 5 years or even 50 years". As he mentions, proprietary programs that timebomb themselves might remain useless even to users who merely want to run the program. Stallman wrote, "I could support a law that would make GPL-covered software's source code available in the public domain after 5 years, provided it has the same effect on proprietary software's source code. After all, copyleft is a means to an end (users' freedom), not an end in itself. And I'd rather not be an advocate for a stronger copyright.".
We should strive for equal opportunity for use upon entry into the PD but the Pirate Party's recommended copyright policy would allow proprietors to exempt themselves from the freeing effect of entry into the PD. Stallman's idea of requiring proprietary software escrow when the binaries are released seems eminently sensible to me. Then users would be on equal footing with formerly copylefted free software source and formerly proprietary software source entering the public domain.
If anyone can point me to a good response to Stallman's essay on this written by a Pirate Party representative I'd appreciate it. I've read the /. thread on Stallman's article and I didn't come across such a pointer.
There are very few Slashdot posters who distinguish freedom from skill, appreciate freedom for its own sake, and acknowledge that real life requires us all to depend on each other as you apparently do. I see many more posters who post arguments based on myths of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps, not being entitled to anything one isn't forced to need, and not seeing force outside of a loaded weapon aimed at someone.
I would rather have an eternity of software freedom at hand. The Linux kernel is obviously robust, portable, capable, scalable, and proven. But in some distributions Linux is not entirely free because Linus Torvalds' fork contains non-free binary-only software (see the linux-libre project for a fully free Linux kernel). Also I'd hope for software freedom and not a particular approach (this OS, that kernel, etc.) because there are other free software programs that shouldn't be forgotten just because they're not a part of a complete GNU/Linux system.
Somewhat similarly regarding the headline for this article on /.: I don't think the true hinge of this issue is nationality or incorporation. These aspects are the true hinge of trouble in other issues (wars and suppressing democracy, to name a couple issues more significant than free software), but here I think that software freedom needs to be the focus worldwide. As time goes on I think more people will realize that software freedom can have life and death implications for ordinary people, particularly where people wear medical devices inside their body without any control over that device's function or any ability to inspect what that device does.
IBM stands alone in the world of patents because IBM holds the most patents. This fact places IBM in a unique position: IBM can leverage the power of cross-licensing more than any other patent holder. This is a formidable power. For IBM the trouble of licensing patents is mostly hypothetical. In "Think" magazine, #5, 1990, IBM estimated the value of this cost. As the link above says:
IBM doesn't pursue patent lawsuits because IBM can pressure virtually any patent holder into cross-licensing. IBM isn't failing to sue because they're choosing to take a defensive position (whether reluctantly or not). IBM's power here puts the lie to the 'lone inventor' myth the patent system sometime engenders just as it puts the lie to any "protection" a small software developer would gain should they discover IBM believes they're competing with IBM.
A transcript of Richard Stallman's talk on this problem (including mention of the above article) is online (1, 2), as are audio and video recordings of him giving this talk. I highly suggest reading and/or watching the entire talk because the talk is highly informative, and he is clear to separate his work on free software from the trouble with software patents. The danger of software patents "relates to the question of whether the programs are free or not, the dangers of the same for all software developers".
GCC consultants charge hundreds per hour for their work. Their "recipe" is skilled programmers doing hard work for paying clients.
It sounds like the answer to your question is to either write all of your own code or build on some non-copylefted FLOSS licensed code. There are people out there willing to treat your business like a charity and give code to you, but GPL hackers aren't. Maybe you should choose another line of work entirely.
I doubt that a lack of e-readers was the driving issue. I think it was King's attitude and that hardly anyone wants to invest in an incomplete story (you'll never know if the rest of the chapters will come until they're published).
As for how to address the public, I think Richard Stallman got it right back in 2001 when he was giving a talk at MIT and someone in the audience asked him a question about Stephen King's experiment:
QUESTION: [A comment and and question about free downloading and about Stephen King's attempt to market one of his novels serially over the web.]
STALLMAN: Yes, it's interesting to know what he did and what happened. When I first heard about that, I was elated. I thought, maybe he was taking a step towards a world that is not based on trying to maintain an iron grip on the public. Then I saw that he had actually written to ask people to pay. To explain what he did, he was publishing a novel as a serial, by installments, and he said, âoeIf I get enough money, I'll release more.â But the request he wrote was hardly a request. It brow-beat the reader. It said, âoeIf you don't pay, then you're evil. And if there are too many of you who are evil, then I'm just going to stop writing this.â
Well, clearly, that's not the way to make the public feel like sending you money. You've got to make them love you, not fear you.
SPEAKER: The details were that he required a certain percentage â" I don't know the exact percentage, around 90% sounds correct â" of people to send a certain amount of money, which, I believe, was a dollar or two dollars, or somewhere in that order of magnitude. You had to type in your name and your e-mail address and some other information to get to download it and if that percentage of people was not reached after the first chapter, he said that he would not release another chapter. It was very antagonistic to the public downloading it.
So, with Louis C.K.'s recording, the illicit downloads didn't stop him from making a profit of $200,000 which is slightly less than he spent on the endeavor ("The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website."). I see no indication Louis C.K. is going after the infringers legally, another huge difference between dealing with him directly and buying through some media multinational. It's not even clear how many of the infringers paid anyway, nor is it clear how many of the infringers would not have paid no matter the price. Stephen King, on the other hand, browbeat the readers into attempted compliance and failed to convince enough people to keep King happy. The story ended quickly and I don't see King trying this again with a more reasonable attitude.
All proprietors have had this power since people ran proprietary software on networked computers, regardless of OS. All that's required is a networked computer (commonplace since Internet access became popular) and a program running with sufficient privilege to do something (easy to do with any installer, probably easy to gain this level of access post-install because most users run with admin logins and will type in their password when prompted). Thus all the insecurities and lack of exclusive control people are talking about in other subthreads have existed for a long time. As long as you ran software you had no permission to inspect, modify, and share, you may have never been the sole admin of your computer. And you'll never know the details of the controls the proprietors possess.