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RMS: Beware of Contradictory “Support”

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Re: RMS: Beware of Contradictory “Support”

#71

Post by wolfgke »

JohnStrange wrote: post #45
cpkpad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a little bit different. The only reason proprietary software exists is the copyright clause in the Constitution, which grants the government a right to issue limited-time monopolies to creators of original works. Revoking a government-granted monopoly is very libertarian. Revoking mutual consent is the opposite.

Proprietary software would also exist without any copyright, people would just guard their trade secrets, obfuscate code and put it server-side more than they already do now. The free software movement uses copyright to protect the freedoms, it is not a "libertarian" movement and never claimed to be. It wants to ensure that programmers and users of software have the four freedoms that RMS has laid out in many talks.…

> Also, if you do not like the GPL, then you should perhaps be consistent and not use GPL software at all.

The reasons one sometimes has to use GPL software are quite similar for the reasons one sometimes has to use proprietary software. So the answer for GPL haters should rather be: avoid using GPL software (if possible), but more importantly: don't contribute to GPL software and contribute to software with "better" licensing so that one can (in future) create devices that are proprietary-software-free and copyleft-free at the same time.

Re: RMS: Beware of Contradictory “Support”

#72

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

cageface wrote: post #41
bdcravens wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years ago HN had a higher percentage of Slashdot refugees or whatever you want to call them, where what I'd call hard-nosed OSS was part of the dialog and the arguments were fresh. These days, there's many who see him less as a controversial figure within "their" community, and more of a crazy old guy with extremist views.

The more time goes by the less crazy he seems. His goals may not be realistic but his predictions about the dangers of dependence on commercial software have been vindicated in many instances. And things might get much worse still if the trend towards authoritarian leadership in Western countries continues.

A bit nit-picky, but RMS is perfectly fine with commercial software (software that is sold for money), he objects to proprietary software (software that you cannot read and modify the source code of). Freeware is not commercial, but proprietary. When you buy a Linux distro CD, that's commercial, but might be non-proprietary (depending on the distro).

Re: RMS: Beware of Contradictory “Support”

#73

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

dcgudeman wrote: post #9

I really appreciate what RMS has done as far as start a movement that I think has contributed greatly to the human existence but when he says things like "The basic point of the free software movement is that nonfree software is unjust and should not exist." I can't but seriously question his judgment. It's one thing to personally want to use free software, it's another to claim that nonfree software "should not exis…

There are two obvious objections to that:

1. If a person is uninformed about the consequences of their decision and the alternatives that they could choose from, is that a voluntary decision? I think it would be very difficult to actually defend the position that the majority of software users decide voluntarily to use proprietary software.

Sure, if someone voluntarily buys cigarettes and smokes, I guess they should be free to do so as well. From that it does not follow that you shouldn't object to cigarettes existing (and in particular to them being offered by vendors to the unsuspecting public).

2. Economists know a concept they call externalities. Those are effects that one's economic transactions have on parties not involved in the transactions, like, for example, pollution of the environment that other people live in. Non-free software very often has negative externalities, in particular due to network effects that lead to de-facto monopolies and lock-in. Negative externalities are a good reason to object to what other people decide to do voluntarily.

Re: RMS: Beware of Contradictory “Support”

#74

Post by legulere »

PeterisP wrote: post #70
legulere wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Even worse, that grants nonfree software legitimacy." ⇒ "nonfree" software has no legitimacy, no matter what. This totally ignores that there might not be free software for that use case, the free software alternative might be worse (very often the case). This article totally ignores those concerns and thus depreciates them as less important. What you're doing is calling me an idiot, you could have at least tried to…

The article doesn't ignore those concerns, but it makes an explicit statement that yes, in their opinion "nonfree" software has no legitimacy, no matter what and even then using, creating and improving free software should be done instead of using the better non-free alternative. What counter argument do you want? FSF explicitly states their position, which seems incompatible with your position, so they acknowledge t…

> What counter argument do you want?

I expect no counter argument or faulty ones if I'm right in my view, and good ones that change my view if I'm wrong. I don't expect to be attacked just by insults without any explanation why I'm supposed to be wrong.

I just pointed out with my original comment that the FSF doesn't tolerate other definitions of liberties and doesn't care if it tramples on them on their way to "replace and eliminate"(from this article) everything that doesn't follow their definitions. It also puts its own cause above everything else.

This seems pretty extremist and totalitarian to me

Re: RMS: Beware of Contradictory “Support”

#75

Post by deepnet »

emp_zealoth wrote: post #38
danso wrote: post #10

> There are organizations that proclaim support for free software or the GNU Project, and teach classes in use of nonfree software. It's possible that they do some other things that really support free software, but those classes certainly don't. On the contrary, they work directly against the free software movement by promoting the use of the nonfree software. That increases the magnitude of the practical problem it…

I've tried to use Octave, I really did. Passed few classes with projects made in Octave. Then I nearly failed some classes because of simple, reproductible bugs no one gave a flying fuck about. None of PCs I've installed the thing on could produce a fully working figure with subplots. For example in 5 subplots number 3 would not render at all. Or the plot would not export to png if you had too many data points. Octav…

When Prof Andrew Ng first ran his Machine Learning MOOC, very many of us relied on Octave. An Octave dev showed up to help students and a fundraiser was organised in return.

In the cases you mention, surely it would be trivial to prove if the problem was Ghostscript or not by demonstrating graph 3 or the missing data points were output or not by Octave before Ghostscripts png conversion.

Surely modularity makes it easier to isolate bugs to a module ?

Were these bugs fixed ? You should go back and see.

Re: RMS: Beware of Contradictory “Support”

#76

Post by legulere »

vertex-four wrote: post #13
dcgudeman wrote: post #9

I really appreciate what RMS has done as far as start a movement that I think has contributed greatly to the human existence but when he says things like "The basic point of the free software movement is that nonfree software is unjust and should not exist." I can't but seriously question his judgment. It's one thing to personally want to use free software, it's another to claim that nonfree software "should not exis…

That is the liberal perspective, but one radical perspective would be that unfree software causes significant harm to society as a whole despite individuals having the choice not to use it directly, and so should not exist. Note that radicals don't necessarily support passing laws to get what they want - the goal of most political radicalism is to cause a change in society, not to force society at gunpoint to do some…

One can also see harm that the free software movement causes.

RMS tried to prevent emacs from having code completion through clang, modularity in gcc and puts software following his definition of freedom before the software being able to fulfill its task in a good way.

Re: RMS: Beware of Contradictory “Support”

#77

Post by legulere »

belorn wrote: post #65
dcgudeman wrote: post #9

I really appreciate what RMS has done as far as start a movement that I think has contributed greatly to the human existence but when he says things like "The basic point of the free software movement is that nonfree software is unjust and should not exist." I can't but seriously question his judgment. It's one thing to personally want to use free software, it's another to claim that nonfree software "should not exis…

Can you provide a single political movement that is fully optional in their goal. Would a vegetarian say that if a person voluntarily buy animal factory meat, then there is nothing wrong with it. Would a environmentalist say that if a person voluntarily buy a polluting car, then there is nothing wrong with the manufacturer selling it. Would a anti-war activist say that if a person voluntarily join the military, then…

Do all vegetarians try to "replace and eliminate" meat-consumption for the whole population? How do you view those that do?

> if a person voluntarily buy a polluting car,

Everyone is affected by the pollution, so a bad comparison.

> person voluntarily join the military,

Again people are involuntarily affected by war.

> I am looking at a list of political movements, and I can't see a single one which would say that they are fine so long the thing they are working against is done voluntarily.

How about "No means no" campaigns? Sex is fine as long as it's done voluntarily by all parties.

Re: RMS: Beware of Contradictory “Support”

#78

Post by gmluke »

chongli wrote: post #34
dcgudeman wrote: post #9

I really appreciate what RMS has done as far as start a movement that I think has contributed greatly to the human existence but when he says things like "The basic point of the free software movement is that nonfree software is unjust and should not exist." I can't but seriously question his judgment. It's one thing to personally want to use free software, it's another to claim that nonfree software "should not exis…

If one person writes nonfree software and another person voluntarily uses it, I don't think anything "wrong" has transpired. Beware the fallacy of composition. What may be "right" in a transaction between individuals can be "wrong" over the entire population. One example of this is the mob effect: if one person takes the time to disagree with you it is not a problem. If thousands of people send you messages of disagr…

> Beware the fallacy of composition. What may be "right" in a transaction between individuals can be "wrong" over the entire population.

I think this issue is philosophically contentious, and interesting. Even if you don't accept that premise, I wouldn't describe this as a fallacy.

I think fallacy is best used to describe a logical non-sequitur/invalid conclusion. It's independent of whether we agree on the assumptions.

Premise 1: Socrates is a man. Premise 2: All men are mortal. Invalid conclusion: Therefore Pigs can fly.

Re: RMS: Beware of Contradictory “Support”

#79

Post by mark_l_watson »

I converted this year to using Linux on all of my computers, and with some compatibility of FSF and Apache 2 licenses, this is 'easy' to do (e.g., the community version of IntelliJ is Apache 2, so a decent IDE slips into my mostly GNU based working and writing environment). I like to wear FSF tee shirts, and I feel like I am being true to the cause, even if I do have an iPad and Apple TV to watch Netflix. I am a member of the FSF and I personally feel like it is OK to have these non-free devices around as long as my working and writing environment is libre software.

Re: RMS: Beware of Contradictory “Support”

#80

Post by paulryanrogers »

legulere wrote: post #77
belorn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide a single political movement that is fully optional in their goal. Would a vegetarian say that if a person voluntarily buy animal factory meat, then there is nothing wrong with it. Would a environmentalist say that if a person voluntarily buy a polluting car, then there is nothing wrong with the manufacturer selling it. Would a anti-war activist say that if a person voluntarily join the military, then…

Do all vegetarians try to "replace and eliminate" meat-consumption for the whole population? How do you view those that do? > if a person voluntarily buy a polluting car, Everyone is affected by the pollution, so a bad comparison. > person voluntarily join the military, Again people are involuntarily affected by war. > I am looking at a list of political movements, and I can't see a single one which would say that th…

The broader point is externalities are involved in the use of software by a multitude of people.

Even consentual sex can have such impacts when--for example--overpopulaton leads to starvation.

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