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Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

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Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#81

Post by inimino »

eesmith wrote: post #47
sn41 wrote: post #7

In the years to come, I believe free software will be recognised as one of the paradigmatic changes in how science itself is done. Now chemists and biologists have started talking about making data openly available and so forth. It's a shame that RMS has to spout forth on every issue, and in the current climate of outrage, science may have lost an important transformational voice. I think as a society, we need to cal…

Free software isn't about making data openly available. Stallman, at https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html , argues that free software developers should "charge as much as they wish or can, ... if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial fee and make some money ." If you have useful data, the free software principles say that you might as well charge a lot of money…

> Free software isn't about making data openly available.

You must be allowed to redistribute the software, and you must be allowed to get, modify, and redistribute the code. Binaries and code are data.

Maybe what you mean is that the biologists' and x-ray crystallographers' journals developed their push for data access independently of the free software movement, but it's a stretch to say that access to the data that a programmer creates and access to the data that a biologist creates have nothing in common.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#82

Post by ariabuckles »

norcalli wrote: post #73
ariabuckles wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman and https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... are good starting points; I also saw threads about it from women MIT alumns on twitter.

It would be horrifying to have meticulously documented notes on every thing you ever said that may or may not be true, and may or may not have been a joke. If his career had been a comedian and not a FOSS advocate, then would he still be crucified for saying the same things or would he simply be an awful comedian? I would be dollars to doughnuts that the author of that site and the editors of that "wiki" have made or…

Honestly, I think we let a lot of mean-spiritedness pass as "comedy", and I think sexist comedy causes a lot of real-world problems.

> I would be dollars to doughnuts that the author of that site and the editors of that "wiki" have made or thought worse things at some point, but because they have not reached a certain level of celebrity, there's no dossier on them. It's truly ridiculous to me the amount of effort spent on trying to claw others down.

"With great power, comes great responsibility." When operating in contexts where you have a lot of power, one has to be more careful with their words and actions. If he had voiced that opinion to a friend of his, no one would have complained. But voicing his opinion minimizing rape on a university mailing list has direct negative effects for a lot of people.

Also, some people do listen, apologize, and put in the work to learn.

> I accept that inequality exists and perhaps RMS has some awful opinions, but if that's the case then just ignore him.

The problem is that other people don't just ignore him. By ignoring his harmful behaviour, we let his negative impact spread further as others repeat his misogynistic ideas.

> A world where everyone is constantly being watched by eachother and reported on is already too authoritarian for me to want to continue living in

I'm sorry and hope you find a way to continue living in this world. And I agree strongly about authoritarian governments.

I don't really think calling out a post on a large mailing list counts as "everyone is constantly being watched by each other" though.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#83

Post by mav3rick »

jnwatson wrote: post #8
malvosenior wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s fair to those who had a problem with RMS. Him arguing about peodophilia on a mailing list does nothing at all to help his ideas spread. It takes quite a lot away in fact. What was the purpose of his argument? To defend his friend Minsky? Again, that does nothing to promote free software, it only adds unneeded and negative baggage. That’s bad leadership and bad for RMS’ message. Yes he had great i…

So just because he happens to be the president of an organization means he can’t defend his colleague on an unrelated private message board? The chilling effect of such a policy essentially means that all advocacy groups must be led by slick marketing politicians, always on-point and on-brand, even if off camera.

Having a leadership position comes with its own checks and balances. RMS isn't special to go over that.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#84

Post by 4bpp »

mav3rick wrote: post #80
4bpp wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, yes. Murder is a very peculiar case that is hardly suitable to be the benchmark for building our intuitions about trading off harm in general: human lives are not fungible, murder is not reversible, the victims do not generally get a meaningful way of influencing how the murder impacts them etc., all properties that do not apply in the case of being put off a pursuit like FOSS. (Even then, we're sometimes…

Wow I've seen everything on HN to protect RMS. The Allies action was to counter gratuitous aggression and persecution of large swathes of people. Are you telling me RMS has had the same experiences in his life to warrant his egregious behavior ?

I don't think my leap from murder to war was greater than your leap from some gauche remarks during a talk in the '90s and a handful of emails lawyering about word choice that might have put some people off working in the speaker's discipline to murder. Other than that, what exactly is your point? At no point did I imply that rms's life history should be compared to the Allied intervention in Europe; I merely brought it up as as an example that proves there is no such thing as a universally accepted rule against trading off murders and people saved.

("Wow, I've seen everything on HN to attack RMS. (...)")

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#85

Post by inimino »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #66
Frondo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The complaints about stallman aren't a matter of thoughtcrime, they're a matter of entirely inappropriate behavior, not just once but repeatedly, over the course of decades. This was the one that disturbed me the most: "Going to an RMS talk in the early 90s and meeting with him in person was among the worst of my experienced - I was fifteen, still obviously underage, and skipping gym class to hear him speak at a prof…

Are you actually kidding me? As you are nearing adulthood as a teenager, you are sometimes able to sneak into adult spaces and experience a bit of adult off-color talk. Not everything is guarded by a fence, but maybe more tech events should be if the alternative is catering to child sensitivities. In any case, these comments would not even be PG-13 in a Disney movie. Also, if the idea is to protect under-18s from any…

> incredibly sheltered.

> privileged

I'm coming to realize more and more—those aren't the same thing.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#86

Post by egdod »

michannne wrote: post #29
schwartzworld wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe people would just be more cautious about saying horrible things on the record.

"Horrible" is completely subjective.

"Horrible" is sometimes subjective. There are things that pretty much every reasonable person would agree are horrible.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#87

Post by donatj »

mav3rick wrote: post #60
4bpp wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe he has alienated more women from FOSS than he has inspired people to contribute to it? Considering the frankly extremely low percentage of female contributors, it seems that he would have had to personally (considering that all of the creepy behaviours listed seem to be limited to his meatspace circles) alienate multiple women for every one woman who did wind up working on in free software, which seems…

You are okay forgiving people as long as their "net impact" is positive? Is it okay for someone to murder a person if they saved more than one life before ?

Yes? lol. Why does everything always come to the Trolley Problem?

I think anyone who was ever in favor of any war would agree that sometimes a death is justified when it saves many more?

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#88

Post by madacoo »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #31
scarejunba wrote: post #15

There's also the beauty in the point of Free Software: it's for freedom. This means it's okay that others profit. It's about you having power. That means you have the power to profit too. All you gotta share is the code for what you distribute. I like free software not because no one is making money. I like people making money. I like it because I can change it. That's important and everyone who gets upset simply bec…

What I could never get my head around when reading about free software is how can people, especially individuals or small companies make money making free software. Sure you can sell it but then the buyer is free to sell it for half the price. One way is if the software is a marketing tool for selling something else. Then people sharing or using it is good for marketing the other service. Another way is if the produc…

https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite

This software uses a license that seems to solve both the problem of ensuring the user has control over the software and also allowing the author to sell and distribute binaries without worrying (too much) about others undermining his control over the market.

It appears to work quite well in this case. Although I do not know how much he actually makes from software sales, it appears to be non-negligible based on its popularity within a niche community and the fact most users would rather pay $15 than learn the skills necessary to compile from source.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#89

Post by ekianjo »

new_realist wrote: post #5
cat_plus_plus wrote: post #3

That's what makes me so furious at the morons who deplatformed RMS over some silly devil's advocate defense of Minsky on an internal mailing list. The guy has an important idea that he put most of his life into developing. In the process, he made programming much more inclusive than anyone could dream about in the days of proprietary operating system with compilers that sold for thousands of dollars. So even if havin…

OSS predates Stallman, and will outlast him. His contributions are overstated, as is the benefit of Free Software, generally, as compared to more permissive licenses.

> OSS predates Stallman

If you are talking about the term OSS, then you are completely wrong. It came long after "Free Software" was coined and was named differently to mark a different movement.

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