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Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

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Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#381

Post by bluecalm »

foldr wrote: post #309
bluecalm wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't suggest that age shouldn't be considered. It says the difference between 17 and 18 years old is minor. The justification is that depending on which country or even state within a country you're in you could be committing "rape" in one and not committing any crime in another. As rape is a word most people understand as awful violent crime it is absurd for it to depend on details like exact location where it…

There has to be an age of consent. Sex without consent is rape. I don't see the problem. Different countries have slightly different definitions of pretty much every crime in the book. Whether or not you are committing fraud, burglary, assault, etc. etc., will also depend on a number of "minor details" that may vary between jurisdictions. Either RMS thinks there should be an age of consent, in which case it's obvious…

The point is that consensual sex with 17 years old is not rape no matter what the law in particular jurisdiction says. Call it something else like sexual misconduct for example. By calling it rape you're demeaning the term. You can't reasonably use the word rape for something that vast majority of people in Western culture consider to be perfectly ok behavior or maybe a bit indecent but certainly not criminal. You're just demeaning the term of you do that.

Just because it's called statutory rape in US law doesn't mean it's a serious crime in all cases and shouldn't be called in a way to suggest that. That's the point Stallman makes and imo it's the obvious one.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#382

Post by inimino »

eesmith wrote: post #97
inimino wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free software isn't about making data openly available. You must be allowed to redistribute the software, and you must be allowed to get, modify, and redistribute the code. Binaries and code are data. Maybe what you mean is that the biologists' and x-ray crystallographers' journals developed their push for data access independently of the free software movement, but it's a stretch to say that access to the data tha…

"Allowed to" is not the same as "required to." Open science people generally want people who publish papers to be required to publish the data. This might be in a public repository, or with the journal, and if there is a fee, that fee should effectively only cover cost. Stallman's conception of free software says that you should be able to charge as much as you want. Hence, these are different concepts. What I mean i…

> Open science people generally want people who publish papers to be required to publish the data.

Free software requires that if you publish (or sell) binaries you MUST release the source as well, with full rights to modify and redistribute.

You are not required to publish, just as you are not required to release software.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#383

Post by inimino »

eesmith wrote: post #97
inimino wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free software isn't about making data openly available. You must be allowed to redistribute the software, and you must be allowed to get, modify, and redistribute the code. Binaries and code are data. Maybe what you mean is that the biologists' and x-ray crystallographers' journals developed their push for data access independently of the free software movement, but it's a stretch to say that access to the data tha…

"Allowed to" is not the same as "required to." Open science people generally want people who publish papers to be required to publish the data. This might be in a public repository, or with the journal, and if there is a fee, that fee should effectively only cover cost. Stallman's conception of free software says that you should be able to charge as much as you want. Hence, these are different concepts. What I mean i…

> Stallman's conception of free software says that you should be able to charge as much as you want.

Yes, once. After this your first customer is now free to undercut you and bring the price as close to zero as they like, as is their first customer, etc.

The analogy is: you can charge Nature as much as you want for the rights to publish your paper, but when you do, you have to give them the raw data, in replication-ready form, which they will then publish to anyone they sell the journal to. And Nature's customer is in turn allowed to republish and if they do is required to again make the source data available.

I think you're reading more than is warranted into rms selling some emacs tapes by mail order back in the day.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#384

Post by noobermin »

_rpaf wrote: post #366
craigsmansion wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Asking female coworkers to lay down topless on a mattress in his office. Even the initial accusation doesn't try to push the story that far: "He literally used to have a mattress on the floor of his office. [..] (the mattress was also known to have shirtless people lounging on it…)" Person has sleeping accommodation in place where he lives (odd thought it may be). Sometimes people use it as chair. No mentions of re…

How excellent of you to redact the most damning part of your quote of the initial accusation, that literally says: > He kept the door to his office open, to proudly showcase that mattress and all the implications that went with it. Many female students avoided the corridor with his office for that reason Now go ahead and tell me it's a coincidence you kept that part out, and it was probably not a big deal, and they w…

I've been in grad school offices that had cots or bean bags in them. Is the contention in here he explicitly said that "people fuck me in my office" or something as coarse as that? Tbh, the only purpose those beds served was for people to rest on them during late nights working. Now, the issue of course why they need to spend so many late nights at the university working, but that's besides the point.

Btw, you seem to be citing something. Could you share it here?

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#385

Post by inimino »

eesmith wrote: post #379
inimino wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, however... if you sell the software, you're obligated to provide source. A better analogy would be if you publish the paper, you're obligated to release your data. Nobody ever suggested that individuals or companies can't do private research at all . You just shouldn't be able to have it both ways. If you want the credit, show your work.

Yes, that analogy is the argument in open data. My argument is that that analogy doesn't follow from free software principles. If it did, then it would follow that if you publish the paper, you're obligated to release your source . And we don't see that coming out of the free software movement. We do see that coming out of the open data/open science movement.

Yes, if you publish, you're required to release everything necessary for a practitioner reasonably skilled in the art to reproduce your results, without undue effort. For example, releasing a tarball of source code missing the Makefile that runs the arcane build process is not within the spirit of free software and you will be soundly ridiculed and if GPL is involved may be sued. Dumping a database that, together with your paper, still requires n > 1 grad-student-years of effort to reproduce is not really open science, although it's a huge step up from Elsevier. Is this broadly understood? Probably not, but it is at least well known by some. Honestly, free software people have been working out these "reproducibility" issues in practice for decades before the biologists even got on the bus.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#386

Post by foldr »

hdfbdtbcdg wrote: post #371
foldr wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS was objecting to the legal definition of rape (hence the reference to it varying between countries). But if you want to switch to the moral issue, then that’s even more black and white. Is it ok for a 70 year old man in a position of power to (hypothetically) have sex with a 17 year old girl? Erm, no. Can sex in such circumstances be fully consensual? No, it can’t. So if your suggestion is that RMS was making som…

> it ok for a 70 year old man in a position of power to (hypothetically) have sex with a 17 year old girl. Erm, no. Can sex in such circumstances be fully consensual? No, it can’t I provided an example with a government minister in Norway already... The minister in question remains in the government (the allegations are unproven but would easily be enough to destroy a British politician). Clearly two very similar wes…

We're both discussing what he wrote.

Terje Søviknes seems the closest match to your description. For an adult in a position of power to get a 16 year old drunk and then have sex with them is obviously wrong. It's certainly caused a scandal in Norway: https://exepose.com/2018/02/15/endless-sex-scandals-in-norwe...

You apparently regard the case as one involving "consenting adults", even though you describe the girl as drunk! It does seem that at bottom, the tiny minority of people who think they've found a morally defensible interpretation of RMS's comments are the people who are basically ok with adult men sexually exploiting teenage girls. Or at least, who think it's very important to sharply distinguish these people from "real" rapists.

I assume that the politician you are referring to remains in power because the allegations are (you say) unproven.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#387

Post by foldr »

lliamander wrote: post #376
foldr wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Others are arguing he means "the difference between those particular ages is minor, and both could be considered reasonable ages of consent". That does not make it "morally absurd" to set 18 as the legal age of consent, so I don't think that's a plausible reading of what RMS said. He could only find the idea morally absurd if he found the idea of the age of consent morally absurd - which is consistent with everythin…

> That does not make it "morally absurd" to set 18 as the legal age of consent Looking again at what he said, I think his main point was about whether the particular hypothetical should be dubbed "rape". Now, you may say "someone under the legal age of consent cannot give said consent, so ergo the act is rape". Which is true, but even when the law has to draw a bright line regarding the age of consent, the law still…

It's difficult to see why Stallman would choose this case to make a point about rape vs. statutory rape. If you look at the context, the person he was replying to was pointing out that Minsky having sex with the girl in question (if this happened) might have legally constituted rape.

Statutory rape may in some cases not be a serious crime (e.g. an 18 hear old having sex with a 17 year old), but we are talking here, hypothetically, about a 70 year old man having sex with a 17 year old sex slave. And yeah, when you are a 70 year old man being offered sex for free by an attractive teenage girl who for some reason lives on your weirdo chum's private island, I do think some degree of due dillegence is required.

>My understanding is that he did make a public retraction of sorts this month

I know - I mentioned that. I asked if there was any evidence that he'd changed his views prior to September 2019. There appears not to be. And he has never apologised or shown any hint of shame.

>Lesswrong

No idea why you think this interminable blog post is relevant. But of course it's no surprise that you're linking to Lesswrong, which has a history of burying serious discussion of rape and sexual assault in endless reams of pseudorationalist bafflegab.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#388

Post by inimino »

eesmith wrote: post #171
doesnt_know wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can simply not distribute it Of course, you haven't infringed on anyone's freedom yet, there are no users. I guess the thing is if you massively overcharge without providing any corresponding service of value the first person that purchases it has the option to throw the source code up on the internet and it can be forked. I guess you also have to find a buyer that is willing to pay you the large sum while also k…

Exactly! I am free to talk about it, boast about it, write papers about it, etc. While, to go back to my first comment: "If you have useful data, the free software principles say that you might as well charge a lot of money for it, which is not what most chemists and biologists think of in discussion of data openness."

If you have useful data, you might as well get a big research grant to publish it. If the buyer (in this case the government or university) were to demand reproducibility, this would cost more, because reproducibility takes work, and it would be worth more; overall scientific progress would accelerate, because reproduction with variation (sounds familiar) has value.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#389

Post by craigsmansion »

flatb wrote: post #361
lostjohnny wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He has been accused, by several independent parties, of, among other things: Who, exactly? > -Asking female coworkers to lay down topless on a mattress in his office. > -Threatening a colleague to kill himself if he/she didn't go on a date with him. Sooooo, your entire analysis is based on legends circulating since the 90s about a weird man who was even told to be scared by plants? For reference, Thomas Lord, creat…

> Sooooo, your entire analysis is based on legends circulating since the 90s No, it isn't. My "entire analysis" is based on accusations made by several independent parties, corroborated by similarly independent witnesses, who have all confirmed what you call "legends of the 90s" to several news sources and publications. What part of that don't you understand? I can provide you with sources, if you want, but I have a…

> your narrative of sexism in the software industry being a mostly made-up issue

Is this what this is all about? Stallman has approximately 0 sway in the "software industry".

I'm sure it is a real problem, but Stallman is neither the cause nor the solution to it. I would look into how paying high salaries for unethical work would attract abusive people, and one shouldn't want to work in those industries in the first place.

Re: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)

#390

Post by madacoo »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #334
madacoo wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've conflated online downvoting behaviours with real life social conformity pressures, each of which probably have quite different effects on the propogation/extinction of certain beliefs.

IRL ones are probably stronger, but they still look fairly similar to me.

I would expect the strength of the effect is only one of many differences between the two.
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