Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Free & Proprietary

mattmaroon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 98 posts

Re: Free & Proprietary

#31

Post by sophist »

dkasper wrote: post #16
henning wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the awesome proprietary software that has smashed Wordpress to pieces which he referred to? His analysis about relative quality is off the mark. Looking at Photoshop and ignoring Emacs, gcc, gdb, git, Apache, and all the other great free software isn't fair.

From the article: "There are lots of great open-source projects out there, especially in the development world." I think that covers Emacs, gcc, gdb, and git at least... He's not ignoring the great free software, he's pointing out that only using free software means that you give up using proprietary software in the cases where it is better.

Proprietary software is never better.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#32

Post by brent »

"... so I appreciate the benefits of free software as much as anyone.

But at home I use some proprietary technologies too. Windows and OSX can be found on the computers there, because they’re still both much more user-friendly than the free alternatives for everyday use, and they have a far more vibrant ecosystem of developers and applications."

Obviously you don't appreciate the benefits as much as anyone.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#33

Post by andreyf »

ericb wrote: post #14
aggieben wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the great irony is that FSF software isn't really free either - it just has its own restrictions that it prefers to others'. To me, FSF is synonymous with "hypocrite", and seems to have sprung directly from Stallman's own peurile bitterness, and not from anything so noble as what they claim. Even if you like the FSF stances (and I have no problem with that), I think it's hard to argue that their idea of "free"…

The MIT license and the BSD license are much truer to the idea of "free" than any FSF licenses. The FSF licenses cause more proprietary code to come into existence (duplication at a great cost to society) when companies cannot integrate GPL products with their proprietary licensed software. So companies write their proprietary version of the component and no one can see the source, or the source of their subcomponent…

> The MIT license and the BSD license are much truer to the idea of "free" than any FSF licenses.

The point of the licenses is different. BSD and MIT gives you the freedom to take away other people's freedoms using the code. FSF does not.

I don't think it's quite obvious which of these is "truer to the idea of 'free'", which is a pretty vague phrase. Where you are coming from makes sense, but one could also think of it as MIT and BSD giving a certain user more freedom, and FSF protecting all user's freedom better.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#34

Post by brent »

sspencer wrote: post #2

Stallman's inability to see how damaging his rhetoric is to his cause is rapidly overshadowing any of his achievements. I went to HOPE 2006 in NYC a few years ago, and ran into him while heading to a lecture about Asterix PBX use. As a huge admirer of GNU tools and the GNU/Linux operating system in particular, it was thrilling to finally get to meet one my heroes. For about a few seconds. I shook his hand and somewha…

You honestly think his rhetoric (mostly ignored) overshadows emacs, gcc, and gdb? You must be kidding.

Also, if he wasn't such a pedant from the start we'd be MUCH worse off.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#35

Post by mattmaroon »

sayrer wrote: post #29

I don't think this post is a good way to frame the argument. In particular, it's pretty hyperbolic when it comes to the effectiveness of Gates' philanthropic efforts. Like, what kind of madman would oppose the greatest giving campaign the world has ever seen? America's earlier robber barons showed similar changes of heart. It seems incredibly misguided to frame an abusive monopoly as a triumph of laissez faire econom…

I was more saying that you shouldn't attack Gates FOR his philanthropy, as Stallman does. Not that his giving makes his business practices or proprietary software immune to criticism.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#36

Post by mattmaroon »

sophist wrote: post #31
dkasper wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: "There are lots of great open-source projects out there, especially in the development world." I think that covers Emacs, gcc, gdb, and git at least... He's not ignoring the great free software, he's pointing out that only using free software means that you give up using proprietary software in the cases where it is better.

Proprietary software is never better.

Depends on your definition of better. The fact that Adobe's revenues were over $3 billion would indicate that quite a few people would define "better" in such a way that Photoshop is better than GIMP.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#37

Post by andreyf »

It's hard to argue that the man who was the world’s richest for decades could have somehow done better for himself or his shareholders, or the world at large.

Easy - if he had pushed Microsoft to release an open standard instead of .doc, .xls, et cetra, he would have done better for the world at large by leaving a competitive market for office products.

Another - if he had insisted IE6 were standards-compliant and open source, he could have saved companies in web development a whole lot of time and money, and done a lot more good for the world at large.

In the long run, this would also have been great for MS shareholders, as the short-term gains of dominating the office and web browser markets are offset by the long-term damage to the MS brand.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#38

Post by andreyf »

It's obvious that up to this point, proprietary software has created a vibrant ecosystem and immense profits that probably would not have existed were all software open source. It's driven the computer revolution, which is the most significant shift in technology and user behavior in living memory.

I would argue that open source technology has been a much more "vibrant ecosystem", and that open source software is creating a much more "significant shift in technology" than proprietary software is.

I don't think it's reasonable to say anything about what the world would be like "if all software were open source", or how that would happen.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#39

Post by [deleted] »

andreyf wrote: post #33
ericb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MIT license and the BSD license are much truer to the idea of "free" than any FSF licenses. The FSF licenses cause more proprietary code to come into existence (duplication at a great cost to society) when companies cannot integrate GPL products with their proprietary licensed software. So companies write their proprietary version of the component and no one can see the source, or the source of their subcomponent…

> The MIT license and the BSD license are much truer to the idea of "free" than any FSF licenses. The point of the licenses is different. BSD and MIT gives you the freedom to take away other people's freedoms using the code. FSF does not. I don't think it's quite obvious which of these is "truer to the idea of 'free'", which is a pretty vague phrase. Where you are coming from makes sense, but one could also think of…

[deleted]

Re: Free & Proprietary

#40

Post by andreyf »

aggieben wrote: post #9
sspencer wrote: post #2

Stallman's inability to see how damaging his rhetoric is to his cause is rapidly overshadowing any of his achievements. I went to HOPE 2006 in NYC a few years ago, and ran into him while heading to a lecture about Asterix PBX use. As a huge admirer of GNU tools and the GNU/Linux operating system in particular, it was thrilling to finally get to meet one my heroes. For about a few seconds. I shook his hand and somewha…

To me the great irony is that FSF software isn't really free either - it just has its own restrictions that it prefers to others'. To me, FSF is synonymous with "hypocrite", and seems to have sprung directly from Stallman's own peurile bitterness, and not from anything so noble as what they claim. Even if you like the FSF stances (and I have no problem with that), I think it's hard to argue that their idea of "free"…

To me, FSF is synonymous with "hypocrite"...

The FSF licenses aren't about giving individuals more freedom, but about ensuring more freedom for everyone. Think of each time someone accepts a license as an edge in a graph - with his licenses, Stallman doesn't want to just add more edges to the graph, he wants to change the shape of the graph all together.

Post reply on HN