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Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

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Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#31

Post by dkersten »

kiba wrote: post #7
aniket_ray wrote: post #3

I'm not a big fan on GPL anymore. When I create some software I prefer the user of my software to have all freedoms including the freedom to embed it in closed source software.

I stopped caring and made my software public domain. Incidentally, nothing really happens until you become popular.

I agree, though I dislike public domain simply because in some countries it isn't recognized and becomes completely unusable. For that reason, I prefer an unresitrictive license like BSD/MIT, or better yet, something like the WTFPL[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#32

Post by billswift »

kiba wrote: post #7
aniket_ray wrote: post #3

I'm not a big fan on GPL anymore. When I create some software I prefer the user of my software to have all freedoms including the freedom to embed it in closed source software.

I stopped caring and made my software public domain. Incidentally, nothing really happens until you become popular.

With the way copyright has been mangled in the last 35 years, public domain may not be safe - I have seen several people commenting that there is no way, since the copyright changes in the late 1970s, to affirmatively put your work in the public domain. Because of that risk, the WTFPL - Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License, http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/ , or an equivalent, is safer for potential users. Note that on the page I linked, it is pointed out that some non-Anglosphere countries didn't have a public domain in the first place.

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#33

Post by SwellJoe »

EGreg wrote: post #23
SwellJoe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've taken that quote out of context, as the next sentence dispels your fear of having to help your mother debug her cell phone. But, to answer that particular argument: It can't help the previous generation in any notable way. That ship has sailed. But, the next generation can be more capable than the current one, assuming we pass on the tools they need and a culture of learning and sharing discoveries. So, don't…

I think that in the future, I wouldn't expect everyone's kids to be know enough to provide patches for software they use. Rather, there has to be a responsive community of developers around the product, with a good TOOL (like a bug tracker) which the kids could use to report a bug and anther TOOL to capture the bug in the app and send the extra info. While everyone would have the freedom to contribute patches, most p…

It's the difference between "may" and "must". You think I'm saying "must", but I intended to express "may".

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#34

Post by SwellJoe »

brudgers wrote: post #28
SwellJoe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've taken that quote out of context, as the next sentence dispels your fear of having to help your mother debug her cell phone. But, to answer that particular argument: It can't help the previous generation in any notable way. That ship has sailed. But, the next generation can be more capable than the current one, assuming we pass on the tools they need and a culture of learning and sharing discoveries. So, don't…

Don't misunderstand me, copyleft is a good approach in certain contexts. On the other hand, MSDN is far more informative than source code comments, a half-hearted Wiki and a snide support forum for the non-professional programmer which populates your ideal world.

"On the other hand, MSDN is far more informative than source code comments, a half-hearted Wiki and a snide support forum for the non-professional programmer which populates your ideal world."

This is directly at odds with my own experience. Whenever I've had to work on Microsoft platforms, I've been constantly bumping into walls where I simply couldn't get the information I needed to solve my problems. MSDN, or no, I've generally been much more satisfied with the process of developing free software and for free software platforms.

Do you find it difficult to find quality documentation for Python, or Perl, or Ruby? How about GCC or LLVM? I haven't. I've found them to be extremely well-documented. And, when in doubt, I can go to the source (or someone else can go to the source to help me). That's not a privilege one has with non-Open Source software.

But, as I mentioned in another comment, the biggest difference in our perspective may be that you think I mean "all users must be developers", when in fact, my intention is, "all users may be developers".

We are talking about freedom here after all, and not forcing anyone to do anything. I simply want a culture in which anyone who desires to learn how their tools work can do so.

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#35

Post by billswift »

EGreg wrote: post #20

If they only called it Liberating Software, they wouldn't have had this happen. After all, open source software is also free (as in, costs nothing). But liberating software sounds like it confers freedom on the person -- actually liberating them. Remember, branding is important.

Open source (as in BSD, MIT, WTFPL) are more liberating than "Free Software" (GPL). They greatly enlarge your opportunities in how you use the software.

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#36

Post by rimantas »

SwellJoe wrote: post #10
hasenj wrote: post #2

Or, why Free Software misses the point of Open Source :) Open Source is about the developers. Free Software is about the end users (or, it's supposed to be). In reality, Free Software ends up being useful only for programmers, hackers, technical people, and well, institutions which require programmers, hackers and technical people to run and grow their infrastructure (such as Universities and Governments). Free Softw…

"Open Source is about the developers. Free Software is about the end users (or, it's supposed to be)." In an ideal world, the user and the developer are one in the same. I don't mean everyone who uses a piece of software should have to know the code intimately; merely that they should have the freedom to see it, modify it and learn from it, should the need or desire arise. The power of the Free Software movement is t…

> In an ideal world, the user and the developer are one in > the same.

What a horrible horrible horrible world. Luckily, that ship has sailed. In the ideal world everyone has tools which just happen to work for whatever particular task user has, be it a composer or doctor without the need to wast the time for fixing them.

This precise sentence I quoted explains why stallmans are more and more out of touch with the reality and the real needs of computer users. Computers are just tools for the majority of they users, just a means to get task done.

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#37

Post by dwc »

SwellJoe wrote: post #29
dwc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've taken that quote out of context, as the next sentence dispels your fear of having to help your mother debug her cell phone. If the next sentence dispels that fear, then the quoted sentence is wrong, and should have been left out altogether. And so it is. This is perhaps the biggest fail of the Free Software movement: co-opting a word, phrase or sentence to fill people with idealistic notions that do not repr…

"If the next sentence dispels that fear, then the quoted sentence is wrong, and should have been left out altogether. And so it is." Sometimes, a thought or concept requires more than one sentence to express.

Yes, but not this time. If that sentence were dropped, the remaining text would be more clear and accurate. That sentence is not true.

Why should a user be a developer in an ideal world? Why should one be required to be a developer to utilize software? It's not even a world that anyone really wants to move toward. The whole idea is very developer-centric, and doesn't represent an enlightened user perspective.

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#38

Post by dwc »

SwellJoe wrote: post #33
EGreg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that in the future, I wouldn't expect everyone's kids to be know enough to provide patches for software they use. Rather, there has to be a responsive community of developers around the product, with a good TOOL (like a bug tracker) which the kids could use to report a bug and anther TOOL to capture the bug in the app and send the extra info. While everyone would have the freedom to contribute patches, most p…

It's the difference between "may" and "must". You think I'm saying "must", but I intended to express "may".

That's much better. May be a developer. May engage the services of a developer. May benefit from unknown developers somewhere halfway across the world.

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#39

Post by SwellJoe »

dwc wrote: post #37
SwellJoe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If the next sentence dispels that fear, then the quoted sentence is wrong, and should have been left out altogether. And so it is." Sometimes, a thought or concept requires more than one sentence to express.

Yes, but not this time. If that sentence were dropped, the remaining text would be more clear and accurate. That sentence is not true. Why should a user be a developer in an ideal world? Why should one be required to be a developer to utilize software? It's not even a world that anyone really wants to move toward. The whole idea is very developer-centric, and doesn't represent an enlightened user perspective.

The point of my comment was that I believe everyone should have the freedom to be a developer. Not that they must be a developer. No one, especially me, has suggested that anyone must do anything.

We're talking about freedom here; and I'd like it if users had the same freedoms I've enjoyed over the past couple of decades. That includes having source available for a large percentage of the software I used, so I that I could learn from it and modify it. No one forced me to become a developer in order to use Firefox, but I've always had the freedom to look at and modify the Firefox code (and thus I could, at any moment and without warning or asking permission, transition from being a Firefox user to being a Firefox developer). I think "developer" is a pretty fluid concept, in an ideal world.

Anyway, as I've mentioned elsewhere, it is the difference between "may" and "must". You believe I am saying "must", when my intention is "may".

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#40

Post by brudgers »

SwellJoe wrote: post #34
brudgers wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't misunderstand me, copyleft is a good approach in certain contexts. On the other hand, MSDN is far more informative than source code comments, a half-hearted Wiki and a snide support forum for the non-professional programmer which populates your ideal world.

"On the other hand, MSDN is far more informative than source code comments, a half-hearted Wiki and a snide support forum for the non-professional programmer which populates your ideal world." This is directly at odds with my own experience. Whenever I've had to work on Microsoft platforms, I've been constantly bumping into walls where I simply couldn't get the information I needed to solve my problems. MSDN, or no,…

>"How about GCC or LLVM?"

I assume that unlike the inhabitants of your ideal world and myself, you are a professional programmer. Why would I run LLVM or GCC instead of Visual Studio Express Edition or program in C rather than utilize a .NET language given that neither really supports Windows in the first place?

For me, free OS's aren't an option. They don't offer the tools I use to practice my profession. To the degree I program, I have access to really good free programming tools on the Microsoft stack and better integration with my existing tools. And to the degree which I desire to learn those programming tools, being partial to physical books I enjoy the benefits of Microsoft press which simply don't exist in the copyleft world.

Again, that's not to say that copyleft doesn't have benefits, but even the best tools are full of dependencies such as the requirement to install Perl to install the Eclipse editor...again something I don't want to have to explain to my father.

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