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Stallman’s Law

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Re: Stallman’s Law

#21

Post by [deleted] »

ktRolster wrote: post #12
stcredzero wrote: post #10

Here's the thing about Richard Stallman -- he's absolutely correct in all of his principles and all of his underlying thinking. He's as intellectually farsighted as anyone I can think of in tech. However, all of the movement around him and the resulting "outreach" efforts have been rather shortsighted in comparison. Let's use environmentalism as an analogy. There is a place for an absolutist intellectual position, wh…

This is why I found the FSF animosity towards "Open Source" perplexing I think you've misread something somewhere. Here is what the FSF says about "Open Source," and it doesn't seem like animosity: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.htm... "We disagree on the basic principles, but agree more or less on the practical recommendations. So we can and do work together on many specific projects."

[deleted]

Re: Stallman’s Law

#22

Post by cyphar »

daveguy wrote: post #20
ktRolster wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I found the FSF animosity towards "Open Source" perplexing I think you've misread something somewhere. Here is what the FSF says about "Open Source," and it doesn't seem like animosity: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.htm... "We disagree on the basic principles, but agree more or less on the practical recommendations. So we can and do work together on many specific projects."

"Disagree on the basic principles" is diplomacy 101 fail -- a great way to project animosity. It is the basic principles on which they agree .

What are the basic principles of "open source"? Because as far as I'm aware, they don't include "user freedom". It's all about practical benefits which are not the primary benefits of free software (the primary benefit of free software is freedom).

Re: Stallman’s Law

#23

Post by icebraining »

stcredzero wrote: post #10

Here's the thing about Richard Stallman -- he's absolutely correct in all of his principles and all of his underlying thinking. He's as intellectually farsighted as anyone I can think of in tech. However, all of the movement around him and the resulting "outreach" efforts have been rather shortsighted in comparison. Let's use environmentalism as an analogy. There is a place for an absolutist intellectual position, wh…

If you're familiar with left-wing groups, it's a fairly recognizable pattern (and heavily mocked by Monty Python in Life of Brian). It's even harder on the FSF because the OSI was very clearly set up to push the same ideas while dropping the part that the former considers crucial.

Re: Stallman’s Law

#24

Post by imagist »

stcredzero wrote: post #10

Here's the thing about Richard Stallman -- he's absolutely correct in all of his principles and all of his underlying thinking. He's as intellectually farsighted as anyone I can think of in tech. However, all of the movement around him and the resulting "outreach" efforts have been rather shortsighted in comparison. Let's use environmentalism as an analogy. There is a place for an absolutist intellectual position, wh…

Environmentalism is the quintessential example of why compromise doesn't work. Climate change is an existential threat to humanity and has only become more of a threat since the origins of the modern environmental movement. I'm not sure how you can represent a failure of this catastrophic magnitude as "tremendous gains".

Re: Stallman’s Law

#25

Post by icebraining »

daveguy wrote: post #20
ktRolster wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I found the FSF animosity towards "Open Source" perplexing I think you've misread something somewhere. Here is what the FSF says about "Open Source," and it doesn't seem like animosity: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.htm... "We disagree on the basic principles, but agree more or less on the practical recommendations. So we can and do work together on many specific projects."

"Disagree on the basic principles" is diplomacy 101 fail -- a great way to project animosity. It is the basic principles on which they agree .

But it isn't - the basic principle behind the FSF and GNU is that proprietary software is unethical, whereas the OSI specifically rejected that position.

Re: Stallman’s Law

#26

Post by marcus_holmes »

oelmekki wrote: post #15

And yet, today's big opensource projects often are driven by big corps. I wonder how rms would reconciliate that. Maybe we can get there the difference between opensource and freesoftwares? In any way, having big companies publishing opensource code tell us how past we are the time when every single company will just publish proprietary software and let you guess the specs.

I think there's a few drivers for big corps getting involved in open source:

1. Getting intelligent people to work on projects for free. This is actually rarer than it sounds. But it does happen.

2. Protecting dependencies. Once a large company depends on a piece of technology, it has a vested interest in the future of that piece of technology. For proprietary code bases, this might mean buying the supplier. For open source, it means getting involved in the project.

3. It's their business model. Create a popular open source project and then provide paid support to organisations that use it.

4. Recruitment. Getting involved in the communities where skilled people hang out, and being seen to be involved in those communities, is great for recruiting those skilled people.

5... other reasons (I thought of a few more but decided not to attempt an exhaustive list)

It's all commercial reasons - how to make more money from this software project.

RMS' view often seems to come from a place where all commercial organisations are inherently evil and out to do their users harm.

I believe that 99.9% of the market for a piece of software are never going to be interested in taking responsibility for the safety of that software. You can give them all the rights you like, but they're not going to use them. The supplier of a piece of software will always be held responsible for its safety. It's not surprising that the supplier will attempt to exert some kind of control over the use of the software, if only to reduce their liability.

Again, commercial interests. Trying to do the best thing for everyone.

Re: Stallman’s Law

#27

Post by the_af »

oelmekki wrote: post #15

And yet, today's big opensource projects often are driven by big corps. I wonder how rms would reconciliate that. Maybe we can get there the difference between opensource and freesoftwares? In any way, having big companies publishing opensource code tell us how past we are the time when every single company will just publish proprietary software and let you guess the specs.

Stallman and the FSF advocate Libre (or "Free" as in speech) software, not open source. Whether you agree or disagree with them, there are philosophical (ideological, one might say) differences between the two movements:https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.en....

Re: Stallman’s Law

#28

Post by rocqua »

imagist wrote: post #24
stcredzero wrote: post #10

Here's the thing about Richard Stallman -- he's absolutely correct in all of his principles and all of his underlying thinking. He's as intellectually farsighted as anyone I can think of in tech. However, all of the movement around him and the resulting "outreach" efforts have been rather shortsighted in comparison. Let's use environmentalism as an analogy. There is a place for an absolutist intellectual position, wh…

Environmentalism is the quintessential example of why compromise doesn't work. Climate change is an existential threat to humanity and has only become more of a threat since the origins of the modern environmental movement. I'm not sure how you can represent a failure of this catastrophic magnitude as "tremendous gains".

Were there any alternatives? Because the fact that our efforts had an undesirable outcome does not mean our methods were bad. Heck, even the very best methods can lead to undesirable outcomes.

I feel that sometimes we expect that an acceptable outcomes is reachable. Sadly, it often isn't. A large part of my growing up has been realizing this.

More to the point, the only real mistake I see environmentalism might have made is come in too hard in the middle. We needed to stir up the shit to get enough people on board. But after that, you need to calm down and get grinding on affecting change. Shooting down progressive action for 'not being good enough' is a great way of preventing progress.

Re: Stallman’s Law

#29

Post by marcus_holmes »

roflchoppa wrote: post #6

Interesting that the more "advance" technology gets, the lower our reasonable expectation of privacy becomes. I want to know when the average person gets on a computer, and surfs around, what data do they expect is kept for just themselves vs shared with the service.

I don't think the "average person" even thinks about data privacy at all.

I've seen people tell other people to "get off MY feed!" as if it's a thing they own and can control. As long as the platform can maintain this illusion, everyone will be happy.

Re: Stallman’s Law

#30

Post by krapp »

daveguy wrote: post #20
ktRolster wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I found the FSF animosity towards "Open Source" perplexing I think you've misread something somewhere. Here is what the FSF says about "Open Source," and it doesn't seem like animosity: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.htm... "We disagree on the basic principles, but agree more or less on the practical recommendations. So we can and do work together on many specific projects."

"Disagree on the basic principles" is diplomacy 101 fail -- a great way to project animosity. It is the basic principles on which they agree .

And yet the basic principle they disagree on is the one fundamental religious tenet of free software - that proprietary licensing is a moral evil which should not be allowed to exist.
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