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A short critique of Stallmanism

jancorazza.com

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Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#11

Post by throwaway729 »

sprafa wrote: post #4

essentially brilliant. I've been thinking more and more about how Stallman has blocked perhaps the only effective way to make companies make more open-source software: allow DRM to work properly with open-source code. That is, the main issue with making open-source software is that anyone can copy it, thus placing the value of your software at 0. But if DRM effectively put a a stop to this, by not allowing you to run…

Patents were intended (in part) to have this sort of effect -- free the knowledge while still allowing the creator to profit.

It's the kind of thing that makes sense but is incredibly hard to get right technically or politically.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#12

Post by saghm »

Interesting read! I agree with most of this, but the I'm not sure I agree with the argument that it would be more effective to convince government agencies to switch to free software by appealing to a civic sense rather than a fiscal one; maybe I'm just overly cynical, but I find it more likely that government agencies would be swayed to adopt free software by showing them how much money they'd save.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#13

Post by dTal »

sprafa wrote: post #4

essentially brilliant. I've been thinking more and more about how Stallman has blocked perhaps the only effective way to make companies make more open-source software: allow DRM to work properly with open-source code. That is, the main issue with making open-source software is that anyone can copy it, thus placing the value of your software at 0. But if DRM effectively put a a stop to this, by not allowing you to run…

>My view on this is increasingly that software should be forced to be open-source and modifiable by the (individual) user. But it should not allow the user to run the code without the developer/owner authorization.

How can you stop someone from running code they have access to? If I write a new program but use routines from yours, who is the "developer/owner"? I can't picture this scheme.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#14

Post by greyman »

> Stallman's rhetoric is filled with this problematic logic on all layers: from trying to correct other people's terminology

Yes, this is my main obstacle accepting RMS. In my opinion, he took the word "free", made a term "free software", and described it in accordance with his agenda, while what he advocated only partially conforms to the meaning of the word "free" or "freedom". There are certainly licenses offering more freedom than GPL v3.

Therefore I myself do not even recognize this term "free software". I am more than willing to discuss RMS ideas, I agree with many of them, but let's stop messing the language first.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#15

Post by matthewmacleod »

trav4225 wrote: post #7
throwaway729 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although your comment is a fair one, this critique is tactical/strategic rather than political/ideological. That is, the author assumes you mostly agree with Stallman's end goals, and from there argues for a different set of strategies.

Definitely agree. I just wanted to point out that, even though it often seems otherwise, there are indeed people in the technological community who have deep problems with the FSF philosophies.

Are there? I would believe that there are many who don't care, or many who are dismissive at a rather shallow level. But I'm not aware of having seen a good, intellectual critique of "free" software.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#16

Post by gumby »

Here's a sympathetic perspective on some of these issues (note: I've known and worked with RMS since the late 1970s, e.g before he grew his hair long and decided to start the FSF).

From the article: > ...crucial mistake: confounding individual virtue and purity with wider social liberation. > ...the familiar liberal ideological mistake of lifestylism: the belief that changes in one's own personal preferences are the beginning and end of political action.

I hadn't really known anyone else like RMS, but in the mid 1980s I had a girlfriend from the Bronx. The first time she met her reaction was simply, "oh, one of those." She said she had grown up with a large number of guys just like him. And indeed, when I went back to the jewish neighborhood in the bronx where she had grown up there were in fact a ton of guys around his age, just like him.. Their causes seemed to be a mixture of judaism and socialism, but they expressed the same intensity and belief in the universality (within an interest group) of their cause.

This made him a much more sympathetic figure in my eyes. And once I could see this, I could see all sorts of people like him.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#17

Post by milesrout »

greyman wrote: post #14

> Stallman's rhetoric is filled with this problematic logic on all layers: from trying to correct other people's terminology Yes, this is my main obstacle accepting RMS. In my opinion, he took the word "free", made a term "free software", and described it in accordance with his agenda, while what he advocated only partially conforms to the meaning of the word "free" or "freedom". There are certainly licenses offering…

>There are certainly licenses offering more freedom than GPL v3.

Only if you consider 'freedom' to include the right to take something and make it closed source with or without changes. Only if you consider 'freedom' to include the right to restrict end user freedom.

The GPL protects the freedom of users. If I license something as GPL then that means I'm saying "I want anyone to be able to use this, and if you want to modify and/or redistribute it you can, but only if you continue to respect users' freedoms as much as I have."

The only person 'messing the language' are the people that turn every discussion of free software into a discussion of whether 'free software' or 'open source' is better terminology, and in my experience that's far more coming from your camp than Stallman's these days.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#19

Post by milesrout »

throwaway729 wrote: post #2

> it is not a solution for people to simply stop using e.g. Gmail. I strongly disagree with this part. For example, if you think the primary problem with GMail is user privacy, then the only solutions are legal or technical. And the legal framework required to protect privacy for GMail users is utterly draconian -- to the point that Google would probably just shutter the service. The problem with Stallman's approach…

>And the legal framework required to protect privacy for GMail users is utterly draconian -- to the point that Google would probably just shutter the service.

Could you elaborate on this? The idea of the law protecting peoples' privacy is not really new or untested. I don't think you need to be anywhere near what I would call draconian to be able to protect peoples' privacy legally.

Re: A short critique of Stallmanism

#20

Post by milesrout »

trav4225 wrote: post #3

IMO, the fundamental problems with Stallmanism are not to be found in its tactics and execution, but rather in the very core of the philosophy itself.

I completely disagree. There are some problems with the free software movement but the fundamental idea behind it is essentially inarguable: proprietary software is anti-user.
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