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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

#41

Post by jberryman »

dwc wrote: post #26
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…

> 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…

Who is to say your idea of how an abstract concept like "freedom" should apply to software is more correct than Stallman's?

> I think everyone would be better served saying what they really stand for, starting with changing the name of the FSF.

Okay, I'm stumped. If not the spreading of free software, what exactly is the FSF's agenda? Because without any specifics your comment is just more FUD.

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#42

Post by mkr-hn »

brudgers wrote: post #40
SwellJoe wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 de…

There's a wealth of books on open source development tools and languages. You can even find them at B&M bookstores.

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#43

Post by w1ntermute »

Does it bother anyone else that people circumvent the dupe-prevention code on HN by adding a CGI question mark to the end of the URL?

This link was submitted quite a while ago[0] without the question mark, and it clearly didn't gain a lot of traction, so in this case it was a good idea to resubmit it. However, it seems wrong that the dupe-prevention code isn't more sophisticated.

0: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2000239

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#44

Post by Omega191 »

cookiecaper wrote: post #24

Stallman's insistence on unlimited and unrestricted redistribution at a price not exceeding cost is the critical flaw with the free software movement. While I agree that this is good and should be encouraged where possible, if there were a license or some support for persons that allowed access to and modification of the code and redistribution of the code only to persons who were appropriately licensed by the copyri…

This is comparing apples to oranges; you don't lose the possession of software when you share it.

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#45

Post by thyrsus »

dedward wrote: post #15
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.

Agreed. The cool thing about being the copyright holder is you are free to release things under as few or as many different terms as you want. I personally prefer to release software under the GPL initially, and then release under other licenses if I want to allow usage in those ways the GPL doesn't permit. Maybe that's a commercial deal with someone, maybe it's just changing the license to bsd, or maybe just making…

Do you refuse contributions (bug fixes/enhancements) the ownership of which is not explicitly assigned to you? What is the license status of those changes?

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#46

Post by dwc »

jberryman wrote: post #41
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…

Who is to say your idea of how an abstract concept like "freedom" should apply to software is more correct than Stallman's? > I think everyone would be better served saying what they really stand for, starting with changing the name of the FSF. Okay, I'm stumped. If not the spreading of free software, what exactly is the FSF's agenda? Because without any specifics your comment is just more FUD.

> Who is to say your idea of how an abstract concept like "freedom" should apply to software is more correct than Stallman's?

I like the dictionary definition of freedom. Stallman has a set of concerns and ideas about how they can be answered, and has set up conditions and restrictions to try to propagate them. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but freedom isn't a very accurate way to describe it.

> If not the spreading of free software, what exactly is the FSF's agenda? Because without any specifics your comment is just more FUD.

I don't think my statement are FUD, as I'm trying to correct common misconceptions. If you want what the GPL offers (and many do) then it's only right that you choose it. However, conflating those ideals with freedom is inaccurate and misleading. If actual freedom is what you're after, a new BSD license is much closer to that. Only public domain is more free, but PD has some international interpretation issues.

As for the FSF's agenda, I don't pretend that it's an evil, secret conspiracy. It's not. They spell it out well enough on their site for all to see, once you filter out the fake freedom bits. Their core ideals are noble enough, though I disagree with some of their implementation.

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#47

Post by kemiller »

SwellJoe wrote: post #6
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.

And I prefer my software to remain open no matter who works on it or distributes it. So, I use GPL. Amazing how people can have different priorities and different beliefs. (And, amazing how one can abuse the word "free" or "open" in either case to mean two very different things.)

I just wish someone would give Stallman the memo.

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#48

Post by hasenj »

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…

I respect FSF and RMS very much, and in fact I think if it weren't for them, Unix would've died, and Linux wouldn't really take off, maybe even BSD wouldn't have existed, and Mac wouldn't exist in the form we know it today (that is, as a Unix based OS).

Having said that, RMS's ideology is not inherently good per se; it's somewhat radical, but without the existence of radicalism, we would've ended up in a world of proprietry only software. In other words, the Open Source movement's "utopia" can't exist without RMS-like radicals who push strongly towards a world of only free software.

As a result, we get an equilibrium where all the tools for development and infrastructure are free/open-source, while end-user products are not always free.

Re: Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

#50

Post by moron4hire »

sp332 wrote: post #25
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…

In the Free Software model, there's no such thing as an end-user. Everyone gets to be a developer (for themselves or their friends). That's why it's so developer-friendly.

unfortunately, when you build your software on "everyone gets to be a developer", more often than not it comes out as "everyone has to be a developer".
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