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Free & Proprietary

mattmaroon.com

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Re: Free & Proprietary

#21

Post by mattmaroon »

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.

I'm curious if he even read the article. I was pretty explicit that I use many free products, because they're often better, and many proprietary ones because they too are often better.

I do have one blog on MT and one on Wordpress, and to be honest I'm not sure which I prefer. It's a close call either way. Given what I've heard of Wordpress's scalability issues, I think I'd use MT if I were running a blog with the expectation of large traffic numbers.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#22

Post by bitdiddle »

drewcrawford wrote: post #17
davidw wrote: post #13

> The market and the individuals who comprise it, rather than Richard Stallman, should decide, as they have in the past, which software people use. Yes, although there's a footnote there: in winner take all markets, the externalities can drive people to feel 'forced' into choices. You can buy a car from whoever you want, pretty much - they're all interchangeable. But try living in the corporate world without .doc. It…

The reason .doc is ubiquitous is because, at one point, MS had the best product and it was adopted by the market. There was no coercion--it was a choice between MS Word or a vastly inferior product. Today, things are different. There are many wonderful office suites. But it's no good saying that we should restructure the pie as if office suites were new instead of old--Office is ahead because OO and iWork and whoever…

.doc a best product. Sorry no way. Word to this day cannot produce anything near as good as Tex. I daily watch long email threads of collaborators struggling to share .doc files written with different versions of Word on different platforms.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#23

Post by bitdiddle »

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"…

So what's your definition of "free"?

I believe FSF code, as in GPL is free. There are four freedoms that come with it. The only restriction is that one can't deny others the same freedoms. You're also free not to use it.

I find it interesting that so many criticize RMS for his character and style. I find myself very tolerant of people who are very talented programmers. I think RMS is a pretty decent programmer. Emacs, GCC, ... have added a lot of value over the years.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#24

Post by derefr »

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"…

I think of it like this: GNU's "free" is really "the freedom of software." That is, it's not what's better for the users/property owners (think fascism) but what's better for the software itself, as an entity (think democracy.) Your right to freely use the software stops where the software's own right to not be "jailed" begins.

To put it another way, the GPL is definitively the license that will apply to AI entities in the future, who, I suspect, will be their own copyright owners. ;)

Re: Free & Proprietary

#25

Post by aggieben »

bitdiddle wrote: post #23
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"…

So what's your definition of "free"? I believe FSF code, as in GPL is free. There are four freedoms that come with it. The only restriction is that one can't deny others the same freedoms. You're also free not to use it. I find it interesting that so many criticize RMS for his character and style. I find myself very tolerant of people who are very talented programmers. I think RMS is a pretty decent programmer. Emacs…

The only restriction is that one can't deny others the same freedoms.

Ah, good. Progress. We agree that what FSF calls "free", and what RMS so piously lectures us all about, has at least one substantive restriction. My definition of "free" (as in speech, as the Righteous and Holy FSF puts it) includes no substantive restrictions.

I think the Stallman's definition of "free" basically amounts to extortion on some level. I also refer back to my point about puerile bitterness.

As a side note, when you feel the need to enumerate the freedoms, then the implication is that there are lots of non-freedoms.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#26

Post by mattmaroon »

bitdiddle wrote: post #22
drewcrawford wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason .doc is ubiquitous is because, at one point, MS had the best product and it was adopted by the market. There was no coercion--it was a choice between MS Word or a vastly inferior product. Today, things are different. There are many wonderful office suites. But it's no good saying that we should restructure the pie as if office suites were new instead of old--Office is ahead because OO and iWork and whoever…

.doc a best product. Sorry no way. Word to this day cannot produce anything near as good as Tex. I daily watch long email threads of collaborators struggling to share .doc files written with different versions of Word on different platforms.

I think he meant Word was the best product. There are, of course, very many different reasons why one might use the word "best", but I would say that there are definitely many reasons why one would call .doc the best format.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#27

Post by evgen »

bitdiddle wrote: post #22
drewcrawford wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason .doc is ubiquitous is because, at one point, MS had the best product and it was adopted by the market. There was no coercion--it was a choice between MS Word or a vastly inferior product. Today, things are different. There are many wonderful office suites. But it's no good saying that we should restructure the pie as if office suites were new instead of old--Office is ahead because OO and iWork and whoever…

.doc a best product. Sorry no way. Word to this day cannot produce anything near as good as Tex. I daily watch long email threads of collaborators struggling to share .doc files written with different versions of Word on different platforms.

TeX may have had superior output, but its input methods have always sucked. At the period of time when word came to dominate there were no wysiwyg TeX tools and it was a real pain to include figures and images. Output formatting mattered if you were submitting a conference paper, but the other 99.999% of the population cared more about being able to get simple tasks done easily.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#28

Post by pg »

bitdiddle wrote: post #23
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"…

So what's your definition of "free"? I believe FSF code, as in GPL is free. There are four freedoms that come with it. The only restriction is that one can't deny others the same freedoms. You're also free not to use it. I find it interesting that so many criticize RMS for his character and style. I find myself very tolerant of people who are very talented programmers. I think RMS is a pretty decent programmer. Emacs…

The only restriction is that one can't deny others the same freedoms.

The GPL is more restrictive than that. If one puts code online and says "do whatever you want with it," everyone has the same freedom to use it. No one can deny anyone else the freedom to use it, short of blocking access to the server.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#29

Post by sayrer »

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 economics. Adam Smith would not approve.

Re: Free & Proprietary

#30

Post by pingswept »

The point about all else being equal, Matt would choose the free over the proprietary is a good one-- that's more or less how I feel as well.

Matt, if you're listening: do you pirate a lot of software? (I don't mean this as an accusation; I'm genuinely curious. If I had to guess, I'd guess no, but who knows? (Uh, you do). I also realize that there's a reasonably good chance that you won't want to answer "Yes, I pirate all of Adobe's products," or whatever, in public, even if it's true.)

Most people I know don't mind pirating software and don't think about DRM until it stops them from doing what they want. I think that's one reason that free software has, in many cases, failed to beat proprietary software.

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