181–190 of 207 posts
Ever since I listened to this episode of the Linux Action Show [0] I can't take RMS serious anymore. He bases everything he believes on one assumption he doesn't dare to argue himself: "Proprietary software is evil." That is it. When you attack his values and stances, he falls back to that sentence. When you argue: But aren't you restricting freedom when you would keep a creator from sharing his software under his ow…
Stallman doesn't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"When you argue: But aren't you restricting freedom when you would keep a creator from sharing his software under his own terms?" I hope you're aware that this is the oldest argument in the book. It literally goes back to Plato and arguments about how you can be free if you're not free to make other people slaves.
Exactly, by forcing a license (you made up) onto my creation, you are basically taking my property and enslaving me. You are saying to me: "Nice work you got there, now, I am going to use it under my conditions. Oh you don't want me to share the software? Too bad, not sharing is evil! I'm sharing it anyway." Yes, you are free to say this but then I can choose not to share my software with you. I will only give you my…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, to a degree Freedoms compete. As the old adage often misattributed adage goes, "Your right to swing your arms ends where my nose begins." Sometimes our freedoms encroach on other people's own freedoms; despite the notion of an unalienable right, such freedoms are only available via force of some means; monetary compensation, organized violence (state or otherwise), and so on. As rights need some external force…
The nose hit is a transaction, you supply, I "enjoy". However, I do not agree on the terms of this nose hitting, it only leaves me with a lot of pain. If you would offer me 1 million BTC I might be inclined to agree to the nose hitting, I'm free to do so. I can not be forced into a transaction but I can choose to accept all consequences. No freedom is lost in this case. You should not engage in nose hitting without n…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only freedom of the three freedoms that applies to users (almost nobody is a developer!) is the freedom to redistribute . So it is basically about the freedom to copy someone else's work without compensation.
The right to repair movement is in direct opposition with current US copyright law over DRM. The reason is not for "copy someone else's work without compensation". Karen Sandler and several security researcher want free software freedom in regard to medical devices. They want to verify the code and even out the power balance between those that depend on the code for their life and the producer of it. That too is not…
That has nothing to do with the GPL or the three freedoms though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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). Yo…
All praise to GIMP, Inkscape and Krita, but they only exist because some proprietary software already existed and created the demand for an free alternative.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your argument: Not giving away what you wrote for free under the terms dictated by Richard Stallman is literally slavery.
There is nothing in the GPL that prohibits charging money for your software. You just have to provide the source code and allow users to make modifications & redistribute.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It's true that our customer base is not very large, though.
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…
> 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? Please note "free" has nothing to do with price, but with end-user freedom (to use/study/modify/share). (example answer to your question: custom/internal software).
Indeed there are many engineers who earn a living by maintaining an open source code base. To their employer, the software is free to modify and customize and free from licensing, but there is still a cost (the developer's salary, etc.) to maintain it, so not free in the sense of cost.
Others develop and distribute software and rely on voluntary payment. But if there were no volunteers, would they still be able to produce and maintain that code? Some would, purely as a hobby, labor of love or mission. They'd still need a day job where they get paid for writing code...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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? Please note "free" has nothing to do with price, but with end-user freedom (to use/study/modify/share). (example answer to your question: custom/internal software).
I could use a little help. Are 'Free' in the sense that Stallman means and 'Open Source' synonymous? Indeed there are many engineers who earn a living by maintaining an open source code base. To their employer, the software is free to modify and customize and free from licensing, but there is still a cost (the developer's salary, etc.) to maintain it, so not free in the sense of cost. Others develop and distribute so…
"Think 'free' as in 'free speech', not 'free beer'."
When we're talking about software, "Open Source" and "Free Software" are mostly synonymous. However:
The Free Software movement concerns itself with preventing software users to be at the mercy of software vendors/providers (on things where it's technically not needed). This requires, amongst other things, (unobfuscated) source code access.
The Open Source movement has different goals, mostly non-ethics oriented, about a collaborative model of development.
It happens that these different goals meet similar requirements, and that both movements were started by hackers initially wanting source code access.