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Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

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Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#311

Post by pjmlp »

pmoriarty wrote: post #284
tannhaeuser wrote: post #268

Missing a reflection about how abundance of F/OSS has pushed us towards SaaS as one of the few places left to make a living from pure software dev, and the oligopolies arising out of it. What about Linux (Android) being used as the prime spyware vector, and Linux being used for cloud lock-in (k8s et al)? Also missing a discussion about the role of open standards as opposed to open implementations, such as POSIX/LSB,…

"abundance of F/OSS has pushed us towards SaaS as one of the few places left to make a living from pure software dev, and the oligopolies arising out of it. What about Linux (Android) being used as the prime spyware vector, and Linux being used for cloud lock-in (k8s et al)?" It's not like closed-source software would have prevented any of this.

People actually pay for closed source software, even if piracy might happen.

SaaS is the only way left to force most people to actually pay for the FOSS stuff they leach.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#312

Post by Lammy »

waplot wrote: post #230

> Now, more free games? It doesn't satisfy an urgent practical need, obviously... But the crucial thing is, free ones might make it easier for some people to say, 'Let's move off this non-free thing, and play a game that is free. So we can have the same pleasure, but without paying freedom as the price.'“ i'm sorry but i just can't read this without laughing. what does stallman think gamers are like? i can only imagi…

He's right, though, even if his proposal isn't practical. Games/movies/music/etc "justify" the development of DRM technologies that inevitably metastasize in time to further lock down general-purpose computing itself.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#313

Post by larodi »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #268

Missing a reflection about how abundance of F/OSS has pushed us towards SaaS as one of the few places left to make a living from pure software dev, and the oligopolies arising out of it. What about Linux (Android) being used as the prime spyware vector, and Linux being used for cloud lock-in (k8s et al)? Also missing a discussion about the role of open standards as opposed to open implementations, such as POSIX/LSB,…

At least some people are sane enough to actually reason and try to figure the real challenge (problem) with free software. The thing is not about open or closed source, but open/closed data and standards that surround them. Not the free/not free software, but the things that actually run on your PC and those that not.

And surely using cloud service, no matter built on open or closed or free or not software, will tell very little of the modifications that were done to the service and the packages. Basically I know nothing about the cloud-based mysqls, elastic searches, etc that are provisioned for me by s.o.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#314

Post by jrockway »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #268

Missing a reflection about how abundance of F/OSS has pushed us towards SaaS as one of the few places left to make a living from pure software dev, and the oligopolies arising out of it. What about Linux (Android) being used as the prime spyware vector, and Linux being used for cloud lock-in (k8s et al)? Also missing a discussion about the role of open standards as opposed to open implementations, such as POSIX/LSB,…

How does k8s lock you in to the cloud? The idea is that it's a replacement for things like Cloud Formation that really did lock you into AWS.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#315

Post by einpoklum »

mixologic wrote: post #260
orbital-decay wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laughing at RMS had proven shortsighted in the past, and I don't think anything changed, it's still unwise. It's not just about free software either (that's a higher-level target), it's also about the hardware and freedom of running your software on your machine, and owning your computer in general. For example, anticheats in multiplayer games is the major driving factor behind locking PCs down with DRM and chains of…

I feel like free software, and RMS's biggest blind spot is the network, between people, and between computers. Everything is framed and discussed in this old timey way of using computers, where you had a general purpose machine that was personal that you programmed to do things you needed, or installed software on, to also do something valueable. Now it seems like the vast majority of the needs and requirements to ru…

> this old timey way of using computers, where you had a general purpose machine that was personal that you programmed to do things you needed,

Personal machines are actually new-time'y, not old-time'y. In the old times there weren't that many computers, and you accessed one via a terminal.

The difference is more in how remote services are now things you can't program and modify and tinker with, but rather closed-source "products" or "services" in shiny wrappers.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#316

Post by nathias »

waplot wrote: post #230

> Now, more free games? It doesn't satisfy an urgent practical need, obviously... But the crucial thing is, free ones might make it easier for some people to say, 'Let's move off this non-free thing, and play a game that is free. So we can have the same pleasure, but without paying freedom as the price.'“ i'm sorry but i just can't read this without laughing. what does stallman think gamers are like? i can only imagi…

You do know most of the current best games were free mods at some point?

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#317

Post by ddingus »

waplot wrote: post #230

> Now, more free games? It doesn't satisfy an urgent practical need, obviously... But the crucial thing is, free ones might make it easier for some people to say, 'Let's move off this non-free thing, and play a game that is free. So we can have the same pleasure, but without paying freedom as the price.'“ i'm sorry but i just can't read this without laughing. what does stallman think gamers are like? i can only imagi…

At a minimum, those gamers need to look at the past, and their own future.

See, when hardware was more open, I was able to preserve and continue to play the games I enjoy. In fact, I can disassemble them, learn from them, make my own.

The gamers of today won't be playing the games of their formative years on their terms, if they are playing them at all.

This is just one of the many things Stallman is right about. Laughing at him is generally unwise. Ask a bunch of us how we know. Seriously.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#318

Post by DocTomoe »

alkonaut wrote: post #310
zufallsheld wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS does not mean free as in free bear but as in Libre.

But a game costs hundreds of millions of dollars to create. Just royalties to sports leagues etc can be massive, for a sports game for example. RMS should work backwards from that assumption and explain how to get such games into gamers hands while maintaining freedom. If he can’t then he should probably give up arguing that people should stop playing or switch to something completely different than what they conside…

No. A game does not cost hundreds of millions of dollars to create. Some games choose to burn hundreds of millions of dollars, for very little return. Some of the best games were a lot cheaper to produce. License costs are elective: Noone forces you to plaster Football players names and team logos on your Football game (and some of the best (and creative) Football games choose not to)

The main problem is that RMS lives in a world in which people care about freedom, when they only care about brand recognition - and that is in fact related to marketing and thus "millions of dollars".

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#319

Post by ddingus »

mixologic wrote: post #260
orbital-decay wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laughing at RMS had proven shortsighted in the past, and I don't think anything changed, it's still unwise. It's not just about free software either (that's a higher-level target), it's also about the hardware and freedom of running your software on your machine, and owning your computer in general. For example, anticheats in multiplayer games is the major driving factor behind locking PCs down with DRM and chains of…

I feel like free software, and RMS's biggest blind spot is the network, between people, and between computers. Everything is framed and discussed in this old timey way of using computers, where you had a general purpose machine that was personal that you programmed to do things you needed, or installed software on, to also do something valueable. Now it seems like the vast majority of the needs and requirements to ru…

I do tons of useful stuff on my computers running software locally on those computers.

You are right about network services working hard to own more and more of the interactions and make it increasingly difficult to manage one's relationships and interactions without those services.

Frankly, I've responded by making damn sure I have interactions with the people I care about that are not owned by these services. Should one change, or I somehow am cutoff, I can maintain my relationships and interactions with people I care about.

Regarding IRC, the resolution to your dilemma is open data in tandem with open code. Sure, they could be running an IRC like thing. But, your data, interactions with others over IRC, are all open. Same goes for email and such. You can take it with you. You can change servers. You can read all of it without enabling technology.

Regarding cheating...

That's a social problem being attacked with technology and it's going to bring grave consequences. Personally, I would rather not play than deal with what's being done in an attempt to prevent cheating. The people interested in doing that are playing their very favorite game, and the cost of escalating that cat and mouse impacts all of us. Impacts you.

Re: Richard Stallman – The state of the Free Software movement

#320

Post by larodi »

Back in the 90s in a country that had just changed from communist to democracy, Stallman really looked like a cool guy, a Robin Hood kinda guy. Because you know what - the communist block actually encouraged piracy, and this free software thing was top of the pops. And the idea of free software, how its created, used, etc... is in a way (to me)... very social, perhaps even very communist by its nature.

Then the first photo I saw of Stallman made me wonder if perhaps he is some kind of Rainbow Gathering type of hippie. Well, fair enough - I appreciate the Rainbow Gathering myself, very liberating... but even there people know that free lunch does note exist.

So the general question about free software is who pays for it. Who pays for the development. It seems that unless it is paid for by governments or universities, the math does not add. Then there is this lack of distinction of what is core package, and business application. Certainly some parts of a larger project may be open-sourced, and even made free, but some can not.

So this generalization of "software" and "free" is at best very childish.

Now don't get me wrong, we've all used pirated software around here, and also used free software, shareware, all kinds of it. And now some tens of years later people also are still very confused about how open source differs from free software. And some of the Richard Stallman fans are even more confused, since one of the major open source supporters in recent years is the once-perceived-very-evil Microsoft...

The argument by some commenters here regarding the cloud lock-in is so valid. It is what we are facing as the biggest challenge - that we don't even see or touch the software that run the businesses anymore. Free or not. Is not on our premises.

And least but not last - I'm more interested in having open access to data created with free/open software and standards alike. What good is a government running free software, when its output is closed, not searchable, not accessible by reasonable APIs? I mean - who cares what CSV, DOCX, SHP, PSDs were created with, if they value 100x the software used?

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