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Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

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Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#21

Post by phamilton »

He's basically saying: "We must avoid design decisions that allow users to do X, because we disagree with X".

Everyone has their own definition of "Free", but to me that seems very similar to Walled Garden decisions regarding my freedom as an end user. You could just as easily say:

"We don't want to allow unsigned code to run, because we disagree with not signing code"

I guess the difference is that you can fork gcc and start a parallel project. Or you can just let it die as llvm and clang become more and more efficient.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#22

Post by zbowling »

cma wrote: post #14
zbowling wrote: post #4

> They have been supported by Apple, the company which hates our freedom so much that its app store for the ithings _requires_ all apps to be nonfree. (*) This is a judgement of the motives of Apple that I do not believe is correct by Stallman and he making a straw man case for it. I don't think that Apple "hates" their freedom. I do believe Apple added the restrictions on having only non-GPL code because they unders…

Read what he wrote in the asterisk; he is making a distinction about DRM and terms of use. A counter example: sourceforge, as the primary distributor of many GPL'ed binaries, does not have to field GPL requests for software. DMCA safe-habor clause removes that burden; all they have to do is comply with takedown requests. http://www.openlogic.com/blog/bid/156894/Are-App-Stores-Liab... "Either way, the next question in…

That is an additional issue but only concerns GPLv3. GPLv2 is restricted for the reasons I mentioned above.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#23

Post by cma »

msbarnett wrote: post #19
cma wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read what he wrote in the asterisk; he is making a distinction about DRM and terms of use. A counter example: sourceforge, as the primary distributor of many GPL'ed binaries, does not have to field GPL requests for software. DMCA safe-habor clause removes that burden; all they have to do is comply with takedown requests. http://www.openlogic.com/blog/bid/156894/Are-App-Stores-Liab... "Either way, the next question in…

> A counter example: sourceforge, as the primary distributor of many GPL'ed binaries, does not have to field GPL requests for software. DMCA safe-habor clause removes that burden; all they have to do is comply with takedown requests. Sourceforge can get away with that because Sourceforge has no editorial process . Apple could not continue to operate their App Store in the manner they currently do and successfully pur…

Amazon got away with it and they have an editorial process for the Kindle store. Youtube takes down offensive videos and has a human appeals process.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#24

Post by Touche »

kwantam wrote: post #5

Context: This discussion originated on the emacs-devel mailing list, where there was a discussion of adding code to company-mode (text completion) explicitly supporting Clang [1]. It was pointed out [2] that RMS has in the past shown a disinclination to incorporate Clang support into GNU projects because of his perception of its encouragement of proprietary software riding the coattails of open source (but not Free)…

Clang is free software.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#25

Post by georgemcbay »

beering wrote: post #2

The people who campaign for GPL software authors to change their license seem to assume that the authors of the software naively chose the GPL, as opposed to choosing it for its particular spirit. That's really important distinction that people don't realize about the GPL - it's designed to protect the rights of the END USERS. And that's great when the end user is you and me, but it's also not surprising that we, as…

"The people who campaign for GPL software authors to change their license seem to assume that the authors of the software naively chose the GPL, as opposed to choosing it for its particular spirit."

Sometimes they do. I've seen it happen more than once where developers chose the GPL, were asked to change it and then did saying they only chose the GPL because it seemed like a decent default because that's what Linux or whatever used.

Even more common are developers who don't fully grasp the practical implications of a particular license, like making a Go library LGPL without a static linking exception, not realizing that LGPL is basically the same as GPL on a platform without dynamic linking or a toolset that is well suited to distributing pre-compiled object files to satisfy the license terms.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#26

Post by Touche »

zbowling wrote: post #4

> They have been supported by Apple, the company which hates our freedom so much that its app store for the ithings _requires_ all apps to be nonfree. (*) This is a judgement of the motives of Apple that I do not believe is correct by Stallman and he making a straw man case for it. I don't think that Apple "hates" their freedom. I do believe Apple added the restrictions on having only non-GPL code because they unders…

> This is a judgement of the motives of Apple that I do not believe is correct by Stallman and he making a straw man case for it. I don't think that Apple "hates" their freedom.

I think Apple views freedom as a threat to their business, so if companies are capable of "hate" then I think the statement is accurate.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#28

Post by msbarnett »

cma wrote: post #23
msbarnett wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A counter example: sourceforge, as the primary distributor of many GPL'ed binaries, does not have to field GPL requests for software. DMCA safe-habor clause removes that burden; all they have to do is comply with takedown requests. Sourceforge can get away with that because Sourceforge has no editorial process . Apple could not continue to operate their App Store in the manner they currently do and successfully pur…

Amazon got away with it and they have an editorial process for the Kindle store. Youtube takes down offensive videos and has a human appeals process.

The human appeals process wouldn't really factor into it. It's more about the distinction between "auto-posting anything submitted" and "high-touch pre-posting decision making process prior to posting" that distinguishes "safe harbours" from sites that bear responsibility for what they host.

I'd need to read the Amazon decision for more insight into how that played out. Seems like a somewhat unsettled area of DMCA caselaw.

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#29

Post by cma »

zbowling wrote: post #22
cma wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read what he wrote in the asterisk; he is making a distinction about DRM and terms of use. A counter example: sourceforge, as the primary distributor of many GPL'ed binaries, does not have to field GPL requests for software. DMCA safe-habor clause removes that burden; all they have to do is comply with takedown requests. http://www.openlogic.com/blog/bid/156894/Are-App-Stores-Liab... "Either way, the next question in…

That is an additional issue but only concerns GPLv3. GPLv2 is restricted for the reasons I mentioned above.

If you read his post, that isn't an additional issue, it's the issue he was talking about. If you read my post, you'll see GPLv2 isn't restricted for the reasons you mentioned because of existence and legal interpretation of the DMCA safe-harbor clause. Maybe you'd argue there would be a different legal interpretation for Apple. I doubt it.

If a company contracted out some code and the contractor stole it from some other copyrighted project, do you really think a court would hold Apple liable, unless there was some pattern of encouraging infringement in the App Store?

Re: Richard Stallman - Re: clang vs free software

#30

Post by zwieback »

thinkpad20 wrote: post #18
octo_t wrote: post #7

Is it bad I just don't care that LLVM has enabled non-free software? Because it has done a h*ck of a lot for opensource software. New languages, new compilers, new optimisers, new IDEs have sprung up around an impressive framework. I also don't understand how LLVM enables non-free software any more than binutils does. I can do: binutils/cat my_file | my_incredibly_none_free_program | binutils/grep my_pattern which is…

You feel the need to censor "heck"? Seriously though, I agree. Stallman here seems to be adopting almost a religious argument, not a pragmatic one. He even announces a refusal to use Skype because it's not free software. If he prioritizes freedom over everything else, then more power to him, but to me talking about who "wins" and "loses" on some kind of arbitrary scale of freedom does not make a compelling case again…

I think that's the function of Stallman and what he will be remembered as: an absolute that's useful to measure your own position against.
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