Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)(gnu.org)
gnu.org
Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007)
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
399 コメント
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 all views. The ability of a user to use software regardless of their personal beliefs or background, what they want to use it for, or against. The choice of usage is completely and wholly up to the user, they may modify it to their heart's content, and the community can use those modifications freely for their purposes. Restricting viewpoints you don't align with is completely antithetical to the purpose of having free-as-in-speech software, and it is truly a shame, regardless of how you interpret the situation, that the poster-boy for these ideals has fallen from his position due to alternate views.
I'd like to take sometime however to reiterate that freedom applies to all views. The ability of a user to use software regardless of their personal beliefs or background, what they want to use it for, or against. The choice of usage is completely and wholly up to the user, they may modify it to their heart's content, and the community can use those modifications freely for their purposes. Restricting viewpoints you don't align with is completely antithetical to the purpose of having free-as-in-speech software, and it is truly a shame, regardless of how you interpret the situation, that the poster-boy for these ideals has fallen from his position due to alternate views.
The free software movement campaigns for freedom for the users of computing; it is a movement for freedom and justice. By contrast, the open source idea values mainly practical advantage and does not campaign for principles.
If you read through more of the article, it becomes clear that the difference in viewpoint has actual real world impact on the type of licensing practices that result.
Promoting a particular principle or ethos matters because it is like the DNA of the idea. Different DNA gets you completely different results.
If you read through more of the article, it becomes clear that the difference in viewpoint has actual real world impact on the type of licensing practices that result.
Promoting a particular principle or ethos matters because it is like the DNA of the idea. Different DNA gets you completely different results.
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 having to deal with a difficult old man makes you feel a little less inclusive, it's not too crazy to give him some breaks. The kids who ran him out of town only know how to destroy, not how to create anything comparable to what he did.
There's also the beauty in the point of Free Software: it's for freedom. This means it's okay that others profit. It's about you having power. That means you have the power to profit too. All you gotta share is the code for what you distribute.
I like free software not because no one is making money. I like people making money. I like it because I can change it.
That's important and everyone who gets upset simply because people profit is not necessarily on the same side as me. I don't want communist shared ownership of all things. I want the power to modify and run my software. That's all. It is actually like free speech. I want it for those who aren't like me and those are who like me.
I like free software not because no one is making money. I like people making money. I like it because I can change it.
That's important and everyone who gets upset simply because people profit is not necessarily on the same side as me. I don't want communist shared ownership of all things. I want the power to modify and run my software. That's all. It is actually like free speech. I want it for those who aren't like me and those are who like me.
> “Free software.” “Open source.” If it's the same software (or nearly so), does it matter which name you use? Yes, because different words convey different ideas.
Even though i support FOSS over OSS, I've always found this particular argument a bit uselessly pedantic. Both of these term are almost always used casually not legally, when we want to do that (i.e when releasing software) we must use the highly specific language of a particular license anyway... which leaves only the following argument:
> establishing freedom in a lasting way depends above all on teaching people to value freedom.
For non-enterprise uses, how much OSS is not also FOSS? most people assume they are equal because the free part is implied, so do we really need to teach it? most software vendors understand this because they know the majority of people will just use it for free if the source is available regardless of whether it is explicitly given as free. It's too hard to enforce payment in any area except for enterprise... When this market force already exists, does it really help to create a social force to differentiate FOSS from OSS? I'm not sure, I think you just end up pissing off new FOSS enthusiasts.
Even though i support FOSS over OSS, I've always found this particular argument a bit uselessly pedantic. Both of these term are almost always used casually not legally, when we want to do that (i.e when releasing software) we must use the highly specific language of a particular license anyway... which leaves only the following argument:
> establishing freedom in a lasting way depends above all on teaching people to value freedom.
For non-enterprise uses, how much OSS is not also FOSS? most people assume they are equal because the free part is implied, so do we really need to teach it? most software vendors understand this because they know the majority of people will just use it for free if the source is available regardless of whether it is explicitly given as free. It's too hard to enforce payment in any area except for enterprise... When this market force already exists, does it really help to create a social force to differentiate FOSS from OSS? I'm not sure, I think you just end up pissing off new FOSS enthusiasts.
Interestingly, one of the latest contretemps on Twitter etc. Lis the desire by some for open source licenses that restrict usage by purpose or organization. For example, ICE, military, law enforcement, etc.
A much longer discussion obviously but an example where user freedoms more or less are counter to developers being able to restrict what their software gets used for once it’s been released as open source.
A much longer discussion obviously but an example where user freedoms more or less are counter to developers being able to restrict what their software gets used for once it’s been released as open source.
Every time I read stuff like this, I think it's the free software people who miss the point of open source.
I would really be interested in an explanation of why driver issues persist on linux, or at least why there were so many issues.
Do vendors have financial preference to work with microsoft to write and maintain those drivers? I'm talking about things like touchpads, wifi... I can understand that if there's no demand, it makes no point for them, but even after all this time?
Not to mention nvidia. What makes nvidia be so complacent towards linux? It has been almost 15 years now. Are there agreements between microsoft and nvidia?
The arguments of Stallman make sense, but to me they don't explain the state of linux drivers, which made the linux desktop so difficult.
Do vendors have financial preference to work with microsoft to write and maintain those drivers? I'm talking about things like touchpads, wifi... I can understand that if there's no demand, it makes no point for them, but even after all this time?
Not to mention nvidia. What makes nvidia be so complacent towards linux? It has been almost 15 years now. Are there agreements between microsoft and nvidia?
The arguments of Stallman make sense, but to me they don't explain the state of linux drivers, which made the linux desktop so difficult.
> we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes
With open source but not "free" (sensu Stallman) software, one is free to run it and study it and change it, right? Since one has read permissions on the code. So the only difference is in distribution rights? So his sentence is misleading regarding the extent of the differences?
With open source but not "free" (sensu Stallman) software, one is free to run it and study it and change it, right? Since one has read permissions on the code. So the only difference is in distribution rights? So his sentence is misleading regarding the extent of the differences?
'as free speech, not as free beer', to explain what is actually meant with 'free software' doesn't cut it for me.
Why not just call it open source and pick the license you prefer? With all respect for Richard Stallman, the label 'free software' is a really poor word choice IMAO.
Why not just call it open source and pick the license you prefer? With all respect for Richard Stallman, the label 'free software' is a really poor word choice IMAO.
Yesterday I have listened to the Hebrew version of this podcast, interesting and relevant:
https://www.cmpod.net/all-transcripts/history-open-source-fr...
https://www.cmpod.net/all-transcripts/history-open-source-fr...
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.
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.
To start, let me say that I believe in Free (libre) Software, as it is defined by the Software Freedoms. People should have the right to run the software they have, as they themselves see fit. That said, there is a lot wrong with open source and free software right now.
First, and I think foremost, is that we’ve done ourselves a huge disservice in training users into believing that software should be gratis. Through the surveillance-driven ad economy for services, to FOSS adherents who insist they won’t pay for software, to smartphone app stores making it impossible to differentiate between products (and also, making it impossible to make a good product). Few people are willing to pay for software anymore (especially developers for development tools). This leaves software development to the privileged few who can afford to work for free, either because they work at a company that sees software as a loss-leader for some ad-economy service, or because they are financially independent. I cannot imagine how one might be able to replicate the 80s and 90s market where you could do hard work, make a great, common product like a word processor or an email client, and consumers would rejoice instead of snarl, “what do you mean you want money for this?” This consolidates power in the hands of Google, Microsoft, or worse, Oracle.
Second, we have grown complacent and too accepting of crap. A lot of gratis software has very little polish (unless it’s being pushed by FAANG). People don’t want to pay for software because they rightly expect to have to try a dozen different packages before they find one that marginally works. Not getting paid means developers don’t have time to put into polish, nor any non-vanity signal to work on anything but neat features. With that, I think comes the ability for any actor of means to easily displace any smaller actor in the market. When a buyout happens, they don’t do it to acquire the technology anymore, they do it to acquire the users. We’ve raced ourselves to the bottom, so the only products we can afford to make are easily replicable by a 10x larger team. Or they don’t even have to replicate it, they just have to dump into marketing the kind of money that would setup any individual one of us for a nice, healthy, “fuck you” lifestyle.
Third, because we haven’t fought “free software does not mean gratis”, companies demand software be permissively licensed or they won’t touch it. So they get to take your work and never pay you and it’s legal. You could GPL license instead and just get ignored, still not getting paid. You get to prove out the market for them, and then they copy your features, release under MIT, and don’t give a shit that they aren’t making money on it, because the only software they make money on is the ad seller console.
I think we need to do several things:
1) grow a spine and a conscience, finally admit that there is no such thing as technology divorced from politics (it8s made for people, by people. Without people, it’s masturbation at best), and refuse to work for Google and Facebook, selling out our fellow citizens for a few bags of silver.
2) stop publicly publishing source code. The GPL doesn’t say you have to leave your source lying around in the open. It says you have to give it to your users. That’s fine. Users need lovin’ too, they just gotta pay first.
3) start taking a little more pride in our craft than, “I made a thing”. Software isn’t done until it is documented. It isn’t done until it’s usable without having to install Node and Python, just to run the setup. It isn’t done until it’s compliant with ADA and 508. With pride comes an expectation of remuneration.
4) stop “bucket of crabs”ing our fellow developers. If you don’t like something about a project, that is fine. But don’t call into question their fundamental right to exist. Too often I’ve seen projects cut down because they were “reinventing the wheel” or “just a solo dev”. Reinvention is important, or we wouldn’t have electric cars or faster computers or really anything. And solo devs wouldn’t be solo if you took them seriously and at least tried to put as much effort into supporting them as you put into cutting down their work.
Realistically, I know this isn’t enough. But it can at least be a start. We can’t keep going on like this.
First, and I think foremost, is that we’ve done ourselves a huge disservice in training users into believing that software should be gratis. Through the surveillance-driven ad economy for services, to FOSS adherents who insist they won’t pay for software, to smartphone app stores making it impossible to differentiate between products (and also, making it impossible to make a good product). Few people are willing to pay for software anymore (especially developers for development tools). This leaves software development to the privileged few who can afford to work for free, either because they work at a company that sees software as a loss-leader for some ad-economy service, or because they are financially independent. I cannot imagine how one might be able to replicate the 80s and 90s market where you could do hard work, make a great, common product like a word processor or an email client, and consumers would rejoice instead of snarl, “what do you mean you want money for this?” This consolidates power in the hands of Google, Microsoft, or worse, Oracle.
Second, we have grown complacent and too accepting of crap. A lot of gratis software has very little polish (unless it’s being pushed by FAANG). People don’t want to pay for software because they rightly expect to have to try a dozen different packages before they find one that marginally works. Not getting paid means developers don’t have time to put into polish, nor any non-vanity signal to work on anything but neat features. With that, I think comes the ability for any actor of means to easily displace any smaller actor in the market. When a buyout happens, they don’t do it to acquire the technology anymore, they do it to acquire the users. We’ve raced ourselves to the bottom, so the only products we can afford to make are easily replicable by a 10x larger team. Or they don’t even have to replicate it, they just have to dump into marketing the kind of money that would setup any individual one of us for a nice, healthy, “fuck you” lifestyle.
Third, because we haven’t fought “free software does not mean gratis”, companies demand software be permissively licensed or they won’t touch it. So they get to take your work and never pay you and it’s legal. You could GPL license instead and just get ignored, still not getting paid. You get to prove out the market for them, and then they copy your features, release under MIT, and don’t give a shit that they aren’t making money on it, because the only software they make money on is the ad seller console.
I think we need to do several things:
1) grow a spine and a conscience, finally admit that there is no such thing as technology divorced from politics (it8s made for people, by people. Without people, it’s masturbation at best), and refuse to work for Google and Facebook, selling out our fellow citizens for a few bags of silver.
2) stop publicly publishing source code. The GPL doesn’t say you have to leave your source lying around in the open. It says you have to give it to your users. That’s fine. Users need lovin’ too, they just gotta pay first.
3) start taking a little more pride in our craft than, “I made a thing”. Software isn’t done until it is documented. It isn’t done until it’s usable without having to install Node and Python, just to run the setup. It isn’t done until it’s compliant with ADA and 508. With pride comes an expectation of remuneration.
4) stop “bucket of crabs”ing our fellow developers. If you don’t like something about a project, that is fine. But don’t call into question their fundamental right to exist. Too often I’ve seen projects cut down because they were “reinventing the wheel” or “just a solo dev”. Reinvention is important, or we wouldn’t have electric cars or faster computers or really anything. And solo devs wouldn’t be solo if you took them seriously and at least tried to put as much effort into supporting them as you put into cutting down their work.
Realistically, I know this isn’t enough. But it can at least be a start. We can’t keep going on like this.
the problem we are discussing in this thread can be rephrased as - do i own my thoughts?
only when we have an answer to this question can we properly progress as a society. else, we will keep expending resources to keep these debates alive.
only when we have an answer to this question can we properly progress as a society. else, we will keep expending resources to keep these debates alive.
What I fundamentally dislike about RMS' philosophy and the licenses its inspired, is that it values a developers time as nothing. As if the world has some fundamental right to everything that rolls out of my head.
There a TL;DR; on the bottom.
I'm very sympathetic with people (over)reacting to what Stallman said and did.
I'm from a family where my parents and most of my uncles worked in healthcare.
Specifically my dad worked in oncology and my mom in infectiuos diseases.
I've seen patient's relatives panic because of some blood (after a very dangerous surgery) or complaining to the management because some other patient had sever pain and they could not stand them crying.
People are tribal, they usually act as a tribe, if not educated differently or introduced to things they do not know.
Of course I don't have to explain than when some of my friends needed to go to an hospital I was always regarded as the unemphatetic for saying things like "some blood is normal at this stage" or "the pain is gonna go away soon, don't worry" or "well, they amputated that man's leg, I bet I would be crying too. You can't complain about that" (this one really happened to me, when I had surgery to remove the saphenous vein, one of my parents friend came over to visit and asked me "why your parents keep you here with that man crying all the time?", I must specify that in Italy healthcare is mainly public, it was even more 25 years ago, you don't find the private hotel like rooms, and it worked much better than today, but that's another story).
SJWs are the same: they only think about their group, their needs, their right words, without stopping to think for a moment that Stallman started 40 years ago and that for 40 years he resisted, you don't just throw him under the bus because he said something you don't like because you were never exposed to that kind of thinking.
But Stallman would have defended their right to speak their minds if the role were reversed.
And that's why I'm sympathetic with them because they don't even understand the damage they made to themselves.
TL;DR;
We should work together engaging in what makes us similar more than what makes us different.
That's what Stallman did.
Exactly 80 years ago Sigmund Freud died.
> The narcissism of small differences (German: der Narzissmus der kleinen Differenzen) is the thesis that communities with adjoining territories and close relationships are especially likely to engage in feuds and mutual ridicule because of hypersensitivity to details of differentiation. The term was coined by Sigmund Freud in 1917, based on the earlier work of British anthropologist Ernest Crawley. In language differing only slightly from current psychoanalytic terminology, Crawley declared that each individual is separated from others by a taboo of personal isolation, a narcissism of minor differences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference...
I'm very sympathetic with people (over)reacting to what Stallman said and did.
I'm from a family where my parents and most of my uncles worked in healthcare.
Specifically my dad worked in oncology and my mom in infectiuos diseases.
I've seen patient's relatives panic because of some blood (after a very dangerous surgery) or complaining to the management because some other patient had sever pain and they could not stand them crying.
People are tribal, they usually act as a tribe, if not educated differently or introduced to things they do not know.
Of course I don't have to explain than when some of my friends needed to go to an hospital I was always regarded as the unemphatetic for saying things like "some blood is normal at this stage" or "the pain is gonna go away soon, don't worry" or "well, they amputated that man's leg, I bet I would be crying too. You can't complain about that" (this one really happened to me, when I had surgery to remove the saphenous vein, one of my parents friend came over to visit and asked me "why your parents keep you here with that man crying all the time?", I must specify that in Italy healthcare is mainly public, it was even more 25 years ago, you don't find the private hotel like rooms, and it worked much better than today, but that's another story).
SJWs are the same: they only think about their group, their needs, their right words, without stopping to think for a moment that Stallman started 40 years ago and that for 40 years he resisted, you don't just throw him under the bus because he said something you don't like because you were never exposed to that kind of thinking.
But Stallman would have defended their right to speak their minds if the role were reversed.
And that's why I'm sympathetic with them because they don't even understand the damage they made to themselves.
TL;DR;
We should work together engaging in what makes us similar more than what makes us different.
That's what Stallman did.
Exactly 80 years ago Sigmund Freud died.
> The narcissism of small differences (German: der Narzissmus der kleinen Differenzen) is the thesis that communities with adjoining territories and close relationships are especially likely to engage in feuds and mutual ridicule because of hypersensitivity to details of differentiation. The term was coined by Sigmund Freud in 1917, based on the earlier work of British anthropologist Ernest Crawley. In language differing only slightly from current psychoanalytic terminology, Crawley declared that each individual is separated from others by a taboo of personal isolation, a narcissism of minor differences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference...
RMS misses the point of Open Source.
Free software misses the point of open source. Open source wants to make the world a better place without strings attached, while free software just wants to push some bizzare ideology.
With just free software concept, it goes nowhere. Once have open source inclusive of free software, it explodes.
You need innovation even in licensing. One man is just one human. Humanity is much larger then one man abd one sex.
Walk on.
You need innovation even in licensing. One man is just one human. Humanity is much larger then one man abd one sex.
Walk on.
FSF misses the point entirely.
It operates on the assumptions of the long-gone world where every software uses was also a programmer. It used to be that way, but it will never be that way again. Nor should it.
I still struggle to appreciate the merits of the (L)GPL's definition of free...
MIT license all the way. It doesn't make me pay through the nose to be 'free' by following some arbitrary rules from elsewhere to fit into something I can only realistically see as a 'club'.
MIT license all the way. It doesn't make me pay through the nose to be 'free' by following some arbitrary rules from elsewhere to fit into something I can only realistically see as a 'club'.
I think as a society, we need to calm down a bit. We should not blacklist people merely based on opinions. We are one step away from thoughtcrime, and need to step back.