Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The fundamentalist FOSS mentality

blog.hiri.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 247 posts

Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality

#81

Post by enriquto »

Topolomancer wrote: post #43
enriquto wrote: post #34

I also believe that proprietary software is morally wrong. I do not care if it has better performance or features; it is just unacceptable on principle. If I'm a fundamentalist for this belief, so be it.

Well, using the term _morally wrong_ seems to paint you into a certain corner. I am curious: where do morals come into play here? Why is a written piece of software so much different than, say, a chair that was built by a carpenter. Would said carpenter be morally wrong as well if he did not want to show you how to build the chair? I am _not_ trying to start an argument here---I am honestly curious about your perspec…

> where do morals come into play here?

I want to be able to check whether the software does anything harmful for me, and to be able to fix it and adapt it to my needs. Proprietary software effectively curtails the possibility of doing that.

Say I am allergic to nuts. Fortunately, when I buy some processed food I can check easily whether it has nuts or not. Now imagine living in a world where food makers sneakily put nuts in their products, in order to "enhance the user experience". And not only that, but they took great efforts to hide this information from the consumers. After all, most people are not allergic, so no big deal here. I would say that this is immoral.

Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality

#82

Post by dpower »

pretty_bubbles wrote: post #73

I disagree with part of your argument. If being FOSS is important to you, by all means, only use FOSS. In some situations it is critical. For example, all of my devices become worthless once they stop being supported, unless they're FOSS. At the same time there are some FOSS fundamentalists that think using proprietary software make you a bad person. They are wrong.

If FOSS is important to you, it should absolutely be a factor in your decision. And of course, people can choose whatever they want. I'm OK with that (although I don't agree with it) as long as it only affects you. If your decision affects others and inhibits their ability to work efficiently, then I think you can justifiably be criticised.

Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality

#83

Post by phkahler »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #4

There's another problem with the "make money by offering support" argument: it incentivizes creating software that requires support, usually via added complexity. Similarly the customization argument: it incentivizes creating inflexible software. I'm not sure there is a monetization strategy that actually aligns with what should be the goals of FLOSS.

As a software developer ones job is to edit code. The way to get paid for that are to fix things that are broken or add features. While support can be viable, good software should "just work" and not need support. Any other business model is simply trying to collect rent. An effort to "monetize" the software is an effort to collect money from its existence rather than doing work on it.

I couldn't really find the point to this guys blog other than he doesn't like people with extreme views because they conflict with his own. He like the world created by those people though.

There was this gem:

>> The main challenge remains getting the word out. Unfortunately, the fundamentalist FOSS mentality we encountered on Reddit is still alive and well. Some Linux blogs and Podcasts simply won’t give us the time of day. This is not a problem with the mainstream tech blogs and is a problem unique to Linux.

I'm not even sure why it's a problem. Not every tech blog or podcast wants to promote his product - OK. But why is that problem? He's just unhappy that people exist that don't want what he's selling. Welcome to planet earth dude.

The original piece also has this:

>> The more obvious fragmentation problem is still a barrier to success. Snaps don’t cover some well known distros — Redhat, CentOS and Gentoo to name a few.

Said the guy writing an email client for Microsoft Exchange. He's actually making a living filling a gap caused by fragmentation and claims fragmentation is a problem.

He's just whining. As am I.

Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality

#84

Post by phkahler »

taffronaut wrote: post #56

I assume that this is the "offending" thread on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/promos/comments/56ymfc/hey_linux_pe... Quotes: “This is going to be a very hard sell being a proprietary closed source system to Linux users, many use Linux because they have bought into the idea of open source. Good luck with it anyway” “If it were FOSS, I would have downloaded it and compiled it 20 minutes ago.” Is that it? The rest of…

>> This was two years ago and I think I'd be over it by now.

The more I think about it, this was written for marketing purposes. He doesn't really make a point. It just draws more attention to the product.

Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality

#85

Post by aethertron »

Here's another old argument from Stallman against using nonfree software, not addressed in the blog post:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.en.html

> As a computer user today, you may find yourself using a proprietary program. If your friend asks to make a copy, it would be wrong to refuse. Cooperation is more important than copyright. But underground, closet cooperation does not make for a good society. A person should aspire to live an upright life openly with pride, and this means saying no to proprietary software.

I don't agree that refusing to copy the program would be wrong. "Cooperation is more important than copyright" is a nice slogan. But copyright IS a form of cooperation. In the situation described, you have to choose between cooperating with your friend and cooperating with the software vendor. Stallman is right to point out that it puts one in an ethical bind, and a way to avoid that is to avoid proprietary software. He argues (elsewhere) that the act of offering proprietary software is really bad, because it erodes society's most precious resource, goodwill.

As for me, I have a fondness for the FOSS subculture, and a preference for free software, ceteris paribus. I use a mixture of free and nonfree software because I have other more pressing concerns, like choosing the best technological choice for the job, and ease of use, and making money.

Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality

#86

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

ekianjo wrote: post #32
dpower wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key point is this: If more Linux people embraced proprietary software it would help spread Linux. Simple as that really. As a proprietary app, we have encountered quite a bit of resistance from Linux users, usually berating us for not being open source. I think that's short sighted. We need more pragmatists.

Linux users who understand where Linux come from (don't bag Linux users under a single umbrella, there's a wide variety of them) have suffered from proprietary software companies not supporting their OS/distros (Adobe, Microsoft, just to pick a few) or seen the effect of "bad proprietary apps" (Chrome systematically trying to spy on you, software with backdoors, etc... that it's going to be a difficult case to come a…

They have only themselves to blame (as a whole, not individuals) because their platform is a pain to develop for compared to others unless your code is open source so distros can compile it themselves.

One does wonder whether this situation is intentionally exacerbated by the fundamentalists. Case in point, there are people against Flatpak because it makes it easier for developers to bypass repos and their package maintainers.

Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality

#87

Post by dpower »

enriquto wrote: post #81
Topolomancer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, using the term _morally wrong_ seems to paint you into a certain corner. I am curious: where do morals come into play here? Why is a written piece of software so much different than, say, a chair that was built by a carpenter. Would said carpenter be morally wrong as well if he did not want to show you how to build the chair? I am _not_ trying to start an argument here---I am honestly curious about your perspec…

> where do morals come into play here? I want to be able to check whether the software does anything harmful for me, and to be able to fix it and adapt it to my needs. Proprietary software effectively curtails the possibility of doing that. Say I am allergic to nuts. Fortunately, when I buy some processed food I can check easily whether it has nuts or not. Now imagine living in a world where food makers sneakily put…

> Now imagine living in a world where food makers sneakily put nuts in their products

Sure, this would be morally wrong (and also illegal). But you are basically saying that everyone is putting peanuts in their software, which is simply false. Quite insulting to those of us that do work on proprietary software.

Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality

#88

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

enriquto wrote: post #53
dpower wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key point is this: If more Linux people embraced proprietary software it would help spread Linux. Simple as that really. As a proprietary app, we have encountered quite a bit of resistance from Linux users, usually berating us for not being open source. I think that's short sighted. We need more pragmatists.

Some people do not care about "spreading" anything. For many people proprietary software is just unacceptable on principle, just like selling food without giving the list of ingredients.

So you don't eat at restaurants then?

Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality

#89

Post by kevkav »

mherrmann wrote: post #62

This article was in the #1 spot on the front page. Now, five minutes later it has completely disappeared. Did you not like the points it made mods?

I contacted the mods about this but haven't heard back. I'm not exactly sure what happened. Maybe some people didn't like the content of the article and decided to flag it? I didn't think flagging could be used as a downvote mechanism.

Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality

#90

Post by 4ad »

beaconstudios wrote: post #39
4ad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If more Linux people embraced proprietary software it would help spread Linux. Linux runs the world. I highly doubt it needs more "spreading".

I think they mean on the user-facing side. Linux runs the world in the sense that it is the backbone of the infrastructure layer, but it's running on very few end-user computers.

That's my point, Linux "won" without needing any presence on the desktop side. Any suggestion about what should happen with Linux and/or Linux users that ignores this fundamental fact is utterly hopeless.
Post reply on HN