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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

#491

Post by pilaf »

simonh wrote: post #363
AndrewOMartin wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamers includes people who play Doom. It's reasonable to think a few of those players will ask "Why does this have from the 90s have such an excellent, creative and enjoyable scene when tons of games since have been forgotten?" The answer, at least partially, lies in free tools, engines, and community content.

The only reason the engine can be free nowadays is that it has near zero commercial value to the IP owners. If the lesson is that for a libre game to survive and prosper at the mass market level being worthless is an important enabling factor, that’s not a great conclusion to come to. Anyway Doom has this great community around it not just because the tools are free, thought that’s a an important enabling factor, but…

id Software has a history of releasing the source code to their engines ~4 years after their initial commercial release:

Doom released in 1993, its engine was open-sourced in 1997 (4 years).

Quake released in 1996, its engine was OSS'd in 1999 (3 years).

Quake II released in 1997, OSS'd in 2001 (4 years).

Quake III released in 1999, OSS'd in 2005 (6 years).

Sure, in most those cases they were at least 2 generations of their own tech ahead when releasing source code, but considering how they were at the cutting edge of game development at the time, arguably those engines still held considerable value at the time and far from worthless.

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

#492

Post by bjourne »

This is a pretty good way of describing what C programming is like: "It's not just that there are a lot of details in the C standard. It's written in terms of abstractions. Instead of telling you what the program means, it tells you what the program is permitted to mean."

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

#493

Post by meragrin_ »

agalunar wrote: post #480
sleepymoose wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has heard the name but never looked into his message until now, is Stallman always so gung-ho on "All software should be free software"? Specifically, when I hit his comments regarding video games, I was quite shocked. "Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it.", if that's the case, then is any entertainment that comes at a monetary fee bad? How ahout proprietary software for…

"Free" here does not mean "free of charge", it means "libre" (guarantees the four essential freedoms [1]). The common quip is "free as in freedom, not as in free beer". [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#four-freedoms

"The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others"

How is that not always going to end up being "free of charge"? Someone is always going to end up redistributing it without charge.

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

#494

Post by vharuck »

maratc wrote: post #383
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Steam engine? That's a transportation problem being attacked with technology steam engine has been adapted to transportation, after transportation was invented, they haven't solved any social problem. there wasn't a transportation problem, there was a problem applying the technology to transportation, for lack of better alternatives. steam engine in cars were banned until 1920s, so cars used electric engines. it wo…

What needs to be explained is why throwing technology at power generation problems, economic problems, healthcare problems, or warfare problems is seemingly ok, but social problems are a no-go zone.

Not all social problems, just those where the people involved have opposing goals. And even then, it's not so much a no-go as unlikely to work. We can tackle problems like advertising and recruiting for local hobby groups. But people will actively subvert, exploit, or ignore software meant to enforce social norms. Anti-cheating software restricts what honest users can do, and cheaters will find a way around it if they like the game enough. DRM is a ham-fisted attempt to force digital media, an industry with virtually no distribution costs, into existing financial models. Solving the problem of encouraging artists to produce work with the promise of money is hard, but DRM isn't solving it.

Social problems are just very hard to solve, and they're rarely made simpler by automation or algorithms. They often require trust in another person's intent.

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

#495

Post by meragrin_ »

zach_garwood wrote: post #479
sleepymoose wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has heard the name but never looked into his message until now, is Stallman always so gung-ho on "All software should be free software"? Specifically, when I hit his comments regarding video games, I was quite shocked. "Unless the game is non-free — then it's bad for you, if you play it.", if that's the case, then is any entertainment that comes at a monetary fee bad? How ahout proprietary software for…

He's using free as in free speech, not free as in free beer.

If you release a game "free" as in "free speech", how is it not "free" as in "free beer" as well? What would prevent people from redistributing it? Nothing.

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

#496

Post by ineedasername »

mcdonje wrote: post #469
ineedasername wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't describe the most extremist viewpoint on most matters as a white angel. Extremism tends to turn off some people from the cause when it looks somewhat irrational. Telling people they're bad and shouldn't play non-free videogames certainly isn't going to help things much. If you make someone who would otherwise be on your side feel guilty everytime they pick up a controller to unwind at the end of the day, t…

You can't control if people think your viewpoint is extremist or guilt-inducing. Some viewpoints can be logically categorized as being at the end of a defined spectrum. Many cannot, and there is much room for debate on whether or not they're extremist.

>You can't control if people think your viewpoint is extremist or guilt-inducing.

True. I'm not saying he can control the impact of his viewpoint, I'm making an observation on what that impact may be.

>and there is much room for debate on whether or not they're extremist.

Also true. I classify RMS as an extremist, but recognize that reasonable people may disagree.

>Some viewpoints can be logically categorized as being at the end of a defined spectrum

That is pretty much the definition of extremism, being at the final end point on either end of a spectrum. But then that's why I don't gravitate towards viewpoints that exist only as a single point on a spectrum. I prefer a multi axial approach that takes various considerations into account. Unfortunately for me that often makes it significantly harder to convey a short answer on my views, because they are fairly nuanced.

As far as RMS, he may have planted a very good seed, but I don't think that OSS would have gained dominance in many areas if there had not been more moderate & practical people working in the area.

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

#497

Post by ordinary »

einpoklum wrote: post #315
mixologic wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-sou…

It is worth pointing out that einpoklum's point is not merely academic: Stallman is old enough that he really did get introduced to computers and programming and software through corporate and university mainframes, and not through personal machines like (I assume) most of us.

The decline of the early open hacker culture in favour of corporate proprietary software during the 70s deeply informed the idea behind Free Software.

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

#498

Post by panta »

meragrin_ wrote: post #493
agalunar wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Free" here does not mean "free of charge", it means "libre" (guarantees the four essential freedoms [1]). The common quip is "free as in freedom, not as in free beer". [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#four-freedoms

"The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others" How is that not always going to end up being "free of charge"? Someone is always going to end up redistributing it without charge.

Yes, but that doesn't preclude the possibility of building a business around the production of free software and even around its distribution.

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

#499

Post by andai »

mrob wrote: post #445
andai wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you buy a game from Jason Rohrer, you get the source code too. (It's also on GitHub.) What you're actually buying is an account on the official multiplayer server (which is also open source). I thought this was a really interesting model. Maybe it wouldn't work so well with singleplayer games. However, there's a similar example with the sprite editor / animation software Aseprite, which is open source but you ha…

As of version 1.1.8, Aseprite is source-available proprietary software, not open source: https://dev.aseprite.org/2016/09/01/new-source-code-license/

Thanks for the correction. In FSF terms, it has the first two freedoms (run the program, inspect/modify), but not the second two (redistribute program freely, redistribute modified versions).

Still, the latest version is on GitHub? But it's only for "personal use" according to the EULA (and not making your own fork for example).

https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite

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

#500

Post by ineedasername »

dwringer wrote: post #433
ineedasername wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure. Movie aren't all there to see. A vast majority of work to get movies to look & sound like they do happen behind the scenes, off the set, in editing rooms where color corrections, sound effects, cgi, and countless other tweaks are made. That's as much the source code equivalent as the final product. The final product is more like a picture of (some) source code and UI rolled into one.

Free software doesn't mean you get to see all the hard work that went into it, though, or that you get to see all the UML diagrams, or napkins, or other design documents. You might not even get all the supporting code, if it isn't required to build the software from the freely-released source (think about what kind of emacs configs developers might use in developing free software, but never release). That's not reall…

Well, to avoid stretching the metaphor too far, I'll just say that the movie/book/music equivalent of open source requires more than just the final product, which is essentially the compiled binary. Where you draw the line between between all production materials and the final output may vary. But if Avengers: Endgame was put under a permissive creative commons license, that would no more make it the equivalent of open source than if Microsoft allowed free distribution of MS Office & derivative works, but not the actual source code.

At this point though we're debating the analogy more than the issue, not always productive (though sometimes it is). Maybe we've (I) stretched it too far.

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