Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007) • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by ekianjo » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 4:07 AM UTC

schoen wrote: post #79

garmaine wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term “open source software” was invented by Christine Peterson in 1998 (edit: thanks!) to distinguish from GPL-style free software. Open source (inclusive of both) never really had any traction outside a few limited domains until the GNU project.

> invented by Christine Peterson in the early 90’s to distinguish from GPL-style free software Invented by Christine Peterson in the 90s, yes (though it was 1998); to distinguish from GPL-style, no. The Open Source Initiative immediately listed the GPL as an Open Source license, and the FSF had already described permissive licensing as free software (as distinct from copyleft licensing). https://web.archive.org/web/1…

If it's a marketing name, it completely misses the essential point that it's about Freedom, not the "open" part of it.

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

#92

Post by ariabuckles » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 4:12 AM UTC

4bpp wrote: post #76

ariabuckles wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting way of framing it—I expect that no, he hasn't directly dissuaded more people than he's encouraged. But I expect that the second- and third-degree network effects have. MIT has had a huge influence on open source software. Keeping the number of women who contribute to FOSS lower has a snowball effect of discouraging other women from contributing—there are fewer leaders to look up to, and day-to-d…

> But I expect that the second- and third-degree network effects have. MIT has had a huge influence on open source software. Keeping the number of women who contribute to FOSS lower has a snowball effect of discouraging other women from contributing—there are fewer leaders to look up to, and day-to-day misogyny in FOSS spaces goes unchecked more often. Surely second- and third-degree network effects occur on the enco…

I think the negative effects spread further because they skew the field more. I think women are more likely to avoid FOSS because there are few women, even without knowing who RMS is, than men are likely to go into FOSS because of RMS or someone who was inspired by RMS. That's an assumption on my part, but I think making tech more equitable for all people is a worthy goal in itself, even if that doesn't increase the total number of contributors.

> Which things specifically, and in what way?

Saying that we shouldn't call sexual assault "sexual assault", and implying that there's any way a rich, famous, 73-year-old man can "have sex with" (rape) a 17-year-old girl, whom he has extraordinary power over, and who, in in this case was his friend's trafficking victim.

The idea that Minsky's "honour" is in any way more important than harm in what happened to Giuffre perpetuates rape culture. It perpetuates the idea that women are worth less than men, and that it's okay for famous men in CS to rape girls. That emboldens other rapists and makes CS very unwelcoming for rape victims.

Minsky should have known. Implying there's any way what he did was okay creates an unwelcoming environment for women, especially young women and girls at MIT.

(Background and links from https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec21... )

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

#93

Post by jonathankoren » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 4:15 AM UTC

4bpp wrote: post #49

Frondo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The complaints about stallman aren't a matter of thoughtcrime, they're a matter of entirely inappropriate behavior, not just once but repeatedly, over the course of decades. This was the one that disturbed me the most: "Going to an RMS talk in the early 90s and meeting with him in person was among the worst of my experienced - I was fifteen, still obviously underage, and skipping gym class to hear him speak at a prof…

It's notable that all of these anecdotes are from back in the '90s and before; since I assume Stallman's accusers dug around very hard for material and this is the best they could find, it stands to reason that he probably has long since improved in that regard. Moreover, the same cluster of people among others has seriously been arguing ( https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... ) that a mattr…

The contemporary misinterpretation of the mattress aside, RMS already had already earned his reputation in the 90s, as had at least one other OSS luminary of the time.

Case in point: RMS's incredibly uncomfortable St iGNUcius routine was already legendary.[0]

Does he intend for it to be awkward at best, and offensive at worst? I doubt it. Has people told him that it is not received as he intends? Definitely. Does he change his behavior to better reflect his purported views of inclusiveness? Nope.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you intend your actions to be interpreted, it only matters how they actually are interpreted. That failure to adapt to clear feedback, is problem.

[0] From 2009 https://mjg59.livejournal.com/113408.html

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

#94

Post by donatj » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 4:17 AM UTC

ariabuckles wrote: post #55

sprafa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn’t know about this. Where can I read more about his behaviour around women?

https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman and https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... are good starting points; I also saw threads about it from women MIT alumns on twitter.

> In 1993, he asked for birth announcements to be banned from emacs mailing list, unless they are announcements for seahorses, because then it would be the male that gives birth and therefore interesting.

I feel like that is pretty sensationalized. The argument being made there is that regular birth is a common thing, and should be left off the list unless it is something out of the ordinary.

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

#95

Post by 4bpp » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 4:19 AM UTC

michannne wrote: post #38

It seems this thread and others like it has fueled a controversial honeypot, as some users are mass-downvoting comments that are perfectly in line with the content posted, simply because they stand for or against ousting Stallman, and others are doing the opposite -- mass upvoting comments that align with their predisposed view of the situation. I'd like to take sometime however to reiterate that freedom applies to a…

But consider the possibility that this might be perfectly rational behaviour for people who care about some side of the cause (even if it comes at the expense of HN as a forum): the victory condition for any belief is to be so universally accepted that its negation can not be expressed in polite company. If you come into a HN thread believing X and then see that every post stating X got downvoted into oblivion, maybe you will think twice before mentioning that you believe X next time you are considering to do so in any setting, real-life or online, that you have a persistent identity of any value in. The next undecided person in that setting might never hear the case for X and come to believe not-X to be as uncontroversial as gravity, and before long it will actually come to be.

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

#96

Post by JamisonM » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 4:20 AM UTC

donatj wrote: post #87

mav3rick wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are okay forgiving people as long as their "net impact" is positive? Is it okay for someone to murder a person if they saved more than one life before ?

Yes? lol. Why does everything always come to the Trolley Problem? I think anyone who was ever in favor of any war would agree that sometimes a death is justified when it saves many more?

It is not the Trolley Problem, you seem to misunderstand the issue. There is no binary choice here, it is not comparable.

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

#97

Post by eesmith » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

inimino wrote: post #81

eesmith wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free software isn't about making data openly available. Stallman, at https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html , argues that free software developers should "charge as much as they wish or can, ... if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial fee and make some money ." If you have useful data, the free software principles say that you might as well charge a lot of money…

> 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 is that the statement in the original comment, "Now chemists and biologists have started talking about making data openly available and so forth" is wrong. Chemists and biologists "started talking about" this decades ago. The evidence I showed is that it was no later than 1987. It's almost certainly older - I just happened to read about this example.

I'm not saying they have nothing in common. I'm reacting to the hyperbole in the idea that the free software movement was instrumental to "the paradigmatic changes in how science itself is done".

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

#98

Post by luckydata » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

ariabuckles wrote: post #6

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #3

That's what makes me so furious at the morons who deplatformed RMS over some silly devil's advocate defense of Minsky on an internal mailing list. The guy has an important idea that he put most of his life into developing. In the process, he made programming much more inclusive than anyone could dream about in the days of proprietary operating system with compilers that sold for thousands of dollars. So even if havin…

It wasn't just this incident. RMS alienated so many women from open source and free software over the last 30 years, and we've lost all of those potential contributions. He's been getting breaks for 30 years. That he has also done some very good things isn't a good argument for continuing to tolerate his harmful behaviour after he's been asked to fix it for literally decades, and hasn't.

Agreed, the message is worth spreading and fighting for, the man can go, he's too toxic.

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

#99

Post by mindcrime » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

I don't think Open Source "misses the point" of Free Software at all. I think both the Free Software movement and the Open Source movement are making different - albeit highly related - points. And the same goes for some of the other "Open X" movements" like the "Open Data" movement, "Open Science", "Open Culture", and so on. There's an inherent commonality at a certain level of abstraction, but each of these "things" is still independent in a sense.

That said, I think it would be better to focus on where these various initiatives are aligned, and focus on how to work together to maximize the strengths of these various communities, as opposed to focusing on where they differ, and engaging in petty bickering.

Of course there will be hard-liners who will reject this, and I can understand and appreciate a measure of that. I'm a bit of the same way when it comes to my radical anarcho-capitalist / libertarian political beliefs. I'm open to a certain measure of collaboration with others in the name of "any progress is better than no progress" and "don't let the perfect be the enemy of good enough", but there are principles that I'm unwilling to compromise on.

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

#100

Post by linuxftw » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 4:27 AM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #70

linuxftw wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stallnan’s actions have detracted from his message. Now we talk about pedophilia because that’s what RMS introduced to an environment that should be discussing free software Do you have an original source, or are you just parroting what you heard in the media?

Yes I’ve read the original email thread.

If you have the source material, why don't you quote it directly.

Since we're talking about the recent email thread, then you'd know RMS didn't start that conversation, so you can't blame him for injecting the discussion anywhere.