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Richard Stallman Explains [video]

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Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#171

Post by newscracker »

rglullis wrote: post #110
Joeri wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In RMS world there would be less software so less ways for people to express themselves freely. Photoshop frees a lot of people from the inability to express themselves in the exact way they want. In RMS world all software woud be GPL licensed, including photoshop. In his view there are other ways software companies can make money than selling licenses, and it is up to their customers to demand them to do that. It's…

In RMS' world Photoshop wouldn't even come to existence.

Just in the image management space, we do have GIMP [1], Inkscape [2], Krita [3], just to name a few FOSS applications using GPL that come to my mind right now, among many others. Photoshop may probably not have come into existence in RMS's world, but that wouldn't have precluded any of these from coming up (even if they appear not to be of the same caliber or if they seem like clones of proprietary applications). Your statement would've made a lot of sense probably several decades ago though.

[1]: https://www.gimp.org/about/

[2]: https://inkscape.org/en/about/license/

[3]: https://docs.krita.org/KritaFAQ

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#172

Post by snvzz »

lsh wrote: post #18
firefoxd wrote: post #16

Ok, 2 seconds in and I'm shocked. All my life I pronounced gnu as new, like Nutella.

Do you pronounce Nutella "Nu-tella" or "Nut-ella" ? FWIW, I pronounce 'GNU' as 'nu'.

There's a p2p network called gnutella. It's not associated with GNU. It gets confusing.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#173

Post by unityByFreedom »

Stallman argues that free software enables users to control programs, whereas paid software is controlled by corporations. I see two problems with that.

(1) Isn't knowledge also power? In this context, developers have the knowledge. Users who aren't programmers don't control free software any more than they do paid software. Further, training more users to become developers requires money.

(2) Corporations don't exist unless they serve users in some way. There's an interdependency that I think Stallman ignores.

That said, free software is important, and a useful way to challenge the paid model.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#174

Post by loup-vaillant »

sokoloff wrote: post #167
loup-vaillant wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little good faith, will you? The idea was that capitalism gives you a choice between proprietary, shitty, or non-existent software. Not much of a choice. Photoshop is often showed as an example where free alternatives aren't up to snuff (I personally don't have an opinion on this one). Hence the short "requires".

It's not for a lack of good faith in interpreting your words (IMO), but a genuine difference of opinion on a critical point. I don't view software on a spectrum from proprietary through shitty to non-existent. I view it more as a two-by-two matrix of high quality/shitty on one axis and FOSS/proprietary on the other. All four quadrants are populated. The economic incentives that capitalism and proprietary software pro…

Well, I agree. Capitalism may not need proprietary software. I was mostly exploring rglullis's hypothesis above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14977956

I do see many problems with capitalism itself, though, so I didn't word my initial comment as well as I should have. I should have said "it would indicate a problem with capitalism".

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#175

Post by newscracker »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #44

I suppose it's a philosophy. Are there enough who share Stallman's view to advance computing technology at a pace that can match what we see with commercial sector? For sure, I am amazed at the power and scope of open source software and it's a highly influential movement. But at some point in the food chain, software developers need to put food on the table and send their kids to school. How does that happen if all…

Leaving the "free" part aside for a moment, since this sometimes gets confusing for people and may go in different directions on licensing, why have more proprietary software companies started open sourcing their efforts in the last several years? Is it purely a marketing tactic alone? Isn't there a lot of benefit they derive from giving something to the community and also having the community participate and accelerate the development a lot more than they themselves could do it? Of course, not all projects are the same, and community interest and involvement would wary. But on average, if there is no advantage except for marketing, I doubt for-profit companies even wanting to do it (the process of open sourcing itself adds some overheads, plus the overheads of getting feedback, coordinating and maintaining it - it's almost like expanding a team of 10 people to a team of a hundred).

> But at some point in the food chain, software developers need to put food on the table and send their kids to school. How does that happen if all software is free?

Support, sponsorships by proprietary software makers, donations from people who want to make a better world. Not even the technical folks have the time or would want to get the source code for software and maintain it all the time. So some dedicated person would still be working on the maintenance and improvement of the software. Free software doesn't mean one cannot sell it either. It's just that others will also have the same freedom to sell it if they invest the time and money to compile/build/distribute it.

Before anyone asks how a lone developer would find the market, that problem exists even for developers of proprietary software (mobile app stores are great examples of the huge skew in the distribution of total earnings from app sales across developers/companies).

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#176

Post by lloydde »

ebcode wrote: post #73
lloydde wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually does have to do with price. All free software is one user away from the possibility (likelihood) it is free as in beer. The parent comment is correct that free software has put magnitudes less food on kids bellies.

>>The parent comment is correct that free software has put magnitudes less food on kids bellies. uh... citation needed?

Citation needed that software industries are dominated by proprietary offerings? It's very hard to measure when there are so few public open source companies.

How many open source companies are there? By open source company I mean companies whose each software product is open source. How many are public companies? Maybe, even just compare those to companies who's products are "open core", which seems to include most (all?) of the open source SaaS offerings.

Or look just at the largest public software companies and estimate their commoditization through open source and community participation through open source.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#177

Post by lloydde »

icebraining wrote: post #67
lloydde wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually does have to do with price. All free software is one user away from the possibility (likelihood) it is free as in beer. The parent comment is correct that free software has put magnitudes less food on kids bellies.

All free software is one user away from the possibility (likelihood) it is free as in beer. And yet, my and others' salaries have been paid for over six years writing free software without it ever being published publicly by its users, despite being GPL licensed.

That's a fantastic! I don't mean to insult, but the likelihood of the software being shared freely by a user increases with success. Your situation is an exception. And likely contributing factors are the specific field and sophisticated, like minded customers.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#178

Post by totalZero »

wmf wrote: post #4
Boothroid wrote: post #2

I was amazed to see that Stallman doesn't install his OS himself - hasn't for years. He seemed diminished in my eyes after I learnt this.

Stallman reminds me of a king who has everything done by servants and knows only what his courtiers tell him. Being free of menial tasks like installing software leaves him more time to tackle serious issues. But it also insulates him from the problems that real people face.

I imagine he is deeply knowledgeable.

My criticism of him is a separate, but similar, issue. I believe that he misses some of the social aspects of modern life, and that's why he views certain innocuous proprietary behaviors as totally damning. Based on his occasional emails to other members of the MIT community, he also seems to have a lack of empathy for people (not just organizations) who don't share his disdain for non-free things.

Not to mention that I find it difficult to see eye to eye with any man who would use a public urinal without shoes on.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#179

Post by lloydde »

tho9Ohx1eo wrote: post #57
lloydde wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually does have to do with price. All free software is one user away from the possibility (likelihood) it is free as in beer. The parent comment is correct that free software has put magnitudes less food on kids bellies.

> The parent comment is correct that free software has put magnitudes less food on kids bellies. At the same time it empowered those who could not afford to pay or could not pay (legal/geo-restrictions, DRM etc).

Absolutely! Additionally, if we are able to create more cases where this inherently collaborative delivery leads to better software then it would unlock real economic growth. Unfortunately, these are ultimately hard people problems.

Re: Richard Stallman Explains [video]

#180

Post by boomboomsubban »

jrimbault wrote: post #140
boomboomsubban wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one installs Windows, and frankly it isn't a ton easier than installing free operating systems. It's only easier because you rarely run into driver issues, the computer was probably built to run Windows, and you're rarely trying to install it as a second operating system.

Last week I installed Windows on my laptop (which was, is, running linux). Sidenote: I was really happy to successfully install it on the same disk as linux and not crap up my bootloader.

UEFI? It's nice that Windows automatically finds an ESP and tosses it's bootloader on there but I wish there was some user input on the issue. It does the same thing even if you give it a separate disk.
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