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Old 5th June 2014
thirdm thirdm is offline
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Originally Posted by LeFrettchen View Post
Ok, he's got a real influence, but why ?
  1. He's got good ideas and really worries on how to apply them...
  2. He's got a big mouth, bigger than the others, and speaks louder than the others...
  3. He and FSF are big and heavy actors on stage, don't let much place for the others free foundations.

For me, it's clearly #2 and #3 : replace the FSF/GNU/GPL staff by any BSD staff, and see.
I don't think the motivations would change a lot, nor the result (except the licenses).
I'd kind of go with 1, myself, but I'm struggling a little with it. I like his four freedoms (although I find it better expressed combining two of them into one point, but four rings familiar for fans of FDR). The moral argument is the part where I struggle. It seems most succinctly expressed here:

"Distributing a program to users without freedom mistreats those users" (his definition of the quality of freedom associated with software being that of allowing actions as required by his four freedoms)
"If the users don't control the program, the program controls the users. With proprietary software, there is always some entity, the “owner” of the program, that controls the program—and through it, exercises power over its users. A nonfree program is a yoke, an instrument of unjust power."
-- https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-...important.html

There are some problems of overwrought language with the second statement and maybe it's debatable how powerless or without choice a buyer of proprietary software is. But even taking only the first milder statement combined with the golden rule, the idea looks okay to me as a moral statement. But then the question for me is whether wrong is quantifiable and whether you can say, "well that's wrong but it's only a little wrong so I'll continue taking jobs producing proprietary software in the absence of good offers for jobs producing free software." Is that the not as bad as fallacy (I learned about in an unrelated thread on this site, thank you) in action or is there a real sense in which degree of wrongness can be quantified and it's legitimate to have a threshold for yourself below which your violations don't cause you to lose sleep?

Whether BSD developers would act the same, I don't know. For one, even some (a lot?) of the GNU developers contribute to GNU for non-philosophical reasons so it's hard to say how much the philosophy drives the coding. But assuming some philosophy, or at least attitudes, drive people to some degree, there seems a fundamental difference beyond (or subsuming?) simple dislike of copyleft on the side of many BSD people. I've seen BSD writing in places express a very different moral idea (or simply a motivation? but I'll treat it as an ethic anyway), one that it's good to put something well crafted into the world and have that used (under any license). I guess, in the narrow sense the good is to avoid some fool getting it wrong when they try themselves with the harm coming back on the developer or the world at large. Then in the general sense, perhaps (not sure if I can really infer this), there's the sense of it being good simply to create and add useful well crafted things to the world for their own sake. Like it's good we have televisions (maybe that's a bad example) so the inventor of the television did a good thing.

The difference comes when you look at some software that's well done but under a proprietary license and ask whether it would be better that that software exist or not exist. FSF/GNU people generally would say better it not exist while BSD people I doubt would say that in general. (Though it's hard to be sure, since BSD people like less to have philosophical debates (so... sorry for this?), and the places where I have seen them I often tuned out because I didn't like the tone or didn't find the arguments compelling, e.g. BSD licensing being superior to copyleft argued in the form of a pissing contest over which license is shorter textually or is most free in the sense of being free from expressed restrictions in the license. I like the way Jeremy Allison meets the latter kind of argument, which he complained about encountering in its crudest form, I think it was here: http://faif.us/cast/2011/may/10/0x0F/ )

Last edited by thirdm; 5th June 2014 at 04:35 PM. Reason: punctuation
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Old 5th June 2014
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Originally Posted by IdOp View Post
there are just so many people interested in open source -- a natural idea that existed outside of GNU anyway. I imagine people would have done things under a wide variety of licenses, just as today, and might even have come up with neighbours of the GPL independently.
THAT is what bugs me so much about Stallman. He has a very narrow definition of "open source" and decries anyone who doesn't precisely meet his definition. So the BSD license affords MORE freedom to developers (who aren't strictly required to release their improvements...no matter how you cut it, x+|y| is bigger than x...any restriction over "do what the heck you want" is **less freedom**), and yet, it is somewhat "lesser" of a license in Stallman's eyes.

I really don't get his philosophy.
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Old 5th June 2014
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Quote:
"If the users don't control the program, the program controls the users. With proprietary software, there is always some entity, the “owner” of the program, that controls the program—and through it, exercises power over its users. A nonfree program is a yoke, an instrument of unjust power."
IMO - it's the aggregate result that RJS worries about, not necessarily the individual instances. Of course I can't read his mind, and could be wrong.

Yet - there should be nothing "wrong" or "immoral" about selling a bicycle, but not the detailed drawings that would make reproductions easier. Why be forced to help your competition? It's pretty much the same deal with software, so long as there are alternatives. IMO - the problem RJS was trying to head off, and has tentatively thwarted, is a situation developing in the world where all vendors of software are proprietary, and act as an aggregate entity to exercise unjust power over users. That's my opinion of his opinion. Some large companies act with the force of an aggregate - all by themselves (Microsoft, Apple). So, there is a difference between a hardware driver vendor who is one among many in a vibrant, competing ecosystem, and an overly dominated area, such as is the case with MS. Again, I can't read RJS's mind, and I know that his statements sometimes read as very strong ideological concepts. But, any business man knows that you bargain for more than you know you will get, and figure the realistic figure into the books.

This is another way of saying that monopolies are immoral, but business in general is not. One article I read in support of Free software gave the example of all (proprietary) vendors being forced to install back doors for you know who - and there being no Free Software alternative.

Last edited by censored; 5th June 2014 at 06:43 PM.
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Old 5th June 2014
thirdm thirdm is offline
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So the BSD license affords MORE freedom to developers (who aren't strictly required to release their improvements...no matter how you cut it, x+|y| is bigger than x...any restriction over "do what the heck you want" is **less freedom**), and yet, it is somewhat "lesser" of a license in Stallman's eyes.

I really don't get his philosophy.
The problem is to pin him to your definition of freedom, freedom as freedom from restriction in what one licensee can do with the software, and then taking him to task for not being consistent with that. This is the way this debate often goes in BSD circles. It's a bad line of argument because he's very clearly defining his terms. If he bandied about the word freedom without defining what he means by it you might have a point, but that's not the case. He and others also make it fairly clear when describing copyleft as a clever community legal hack that the aim is to control how the licensing propagates freedom (as he defines it) not just to one user but to who he or she distributes to and so on through the world and that a goal is to actively avoid providing anything for use within proprietary software.

It's common for people to define the word freedom in different ways. I've been trying to learn more about traditional philosophy. You talk about freedom in the way that Hegel meant it vs. how J.S. Mill did and you're talking about pretty different ideas. Think of it that way with rms. It doesn't mean you have to agree with him, but it may help you understand where he's coming from.

Last edited by thirdm; 5th June 2014 at 09:24 PM. Reason: punctuation
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Old 5th June 2014
thirdm thirdm is offline
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Yet - there should be nothing "wrong" or "immoral" about selling a bicycle, but not the detailed drawings that would make reproductions easier. Why be forced to help your competition?
Argument by analogy seldom works well. You can mod a bicycle with a blow torch. Not so much in software. A common analogy is selling a car with the hood welded down. A closer analogy might be selling cars with computers so integrated that to fix them you need the specs of those computers. See the debate over Right to Repair laws for very similar arguments to the free software arguments.

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Originally Posted by censored View Post
It's pretty much the same deal with software, so long as there are alternatives. IMO - the problem RJS was trying to head off, and has tentatively thwarted, is a situation developing in the world where all vendors of software are proprietary, and act as an aggregate entity to exercise unjust power over users. That's my opinion of his opinion.
That seems a stretch given his condemnation of any and all proprietary software whatever the context.
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Originally Posted by censored View Post
This is another way of saying that monopolies are immoral, but business in general is not. One article I read in support of Free software gave the example of all (proprietary) vendors being forced to install back doors for you know who - and there being no Free Software alternative.
I don't see monopolies being discussed in any rms essays. In fact, recently he seems quite alarmed that people now have the extra choice of clang, his concern seeming to be that existing gcc users might be drawn to clang, build on it with extensions such that the combined free + proprietary suite is more compelling than the free alone.
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Old 5th June 2014
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thirdm View Post
...
It's common for people to define the word freedom in different ways. I've been trying to learn more about traditional philosophy. You talk about freedom in the way that Hegel meant it vs. how J.S. Mill did and you're talking about pretty different ideas. Think of it that way with rms. It doesn't mean you have to agree with him, but it may help you understand where he's coming from.
So,

GPL=Hegel
BSD=Mills

If that's the case, I'll think I'll stick with Mills.
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Old 5th June 2014
censored censored is offline
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Quote:
Thirdm ...
Argument by analogy seldom works well. You can mod a bicycle with a blow torch. Not so much in software. A common analogy is selling a car with the hood welded down. A closer analogy might be selling cars with computers so integrated that to fix them you need the specs of those computers. See the debate over Right to Repair laws for very similar arguments to the free software arguments.
Hmmm ... blow torch mods. I'll have to mull that over. I think in a system with strong competition, you might just buy a bicycle that doesn't require the blow torch mod. You're right though, analogies often fail their intended purpose.
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Old 5th June 2014
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Originally Posted by thirdm View Post
the aim is to control how the licensing propagates freedom (as he defines it) not just to one user but to who he or she distributes to and so on through the world and that a goal is to actively avoid providing anything for use within proprietary software.
If I fork a BSD project and make it proprietary, how am I revoking the rights of people who wish to use the BSD licensed version?

There is a difference between maintaining freedom and maintaining freedom as long as the use-case fits your personal philosophy.

Edit -
I would like to extend my personal definition of freedom, if I might. Freedom is the right to do what you want, when you want, where you want, with whom you want, however you want, in whatever matter you desire, so long as your actions do not infringe on the freedom of others.

If I fork an open source project into a proprietary project and extend said project with proprietary extensions, people have a choice of paying for my proprietary version or freely (typically) using the open source version. I have not revoked their freedoms in any way (I have provided them, to the contrary, with an alternative). If you say I have to now release my proprietary extensions to the world, you are in fact revoking my freedoms.

Control is control, no matter how you cut it.
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Last edited by rocket357; 5th June 2014 at 10:40 PM.
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Old 6th June 2014
thirdm thirdm is offline
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Originally Posted by rocket357 View Post
If I fork a BSD project and make it proprietary, how am I revoking the rights of people who wish to use the BSD licensed version?

There is a difference between maintaining freedom and maintaining freedom as long as the use-case fits your personal philosophy.

Edit -
I would like to extend my personal definition of freedom, if I might. Freedom is the right to do what you want, when you want, where you want, with whom you want, however you want, in whatever matter you desire, so long as your actions do not infringe on the freedom of others.

If I fork an open source project into a proprietary project and extend said project with proprietary extensions, people have a choice of paying for my proprietary version or freely (typically) using the open source version. I have not revoked their freedoms in any way (I have provided them, to the contrary, with an alternative). If you say I have to now release my proprietary extensions to the world, you are in fact revoking my freedoms.

Control is control, no matter how you cut it.
I'm the wrong one to debate this with since I'm not 100% one way or the other on copyleft vs. BSD. Basically, my attitude is, "yes please." I'm not creating any free software to speak of so I'll leave to those who do which form of license they prefer. If I were creating software people would use, I'd probably use GPL (unless it seemed useful to BSD people) plus an expressed preference that it not be used in military use -- not a license restriction just an expressed wish, enough to make certain folks nervous enough about me they wouldn't want to use my software.

I'll only remind you you started out with, "THAT is what bugs me so much about Stallman. He has a very narrow definition of "open source" and decries anyone who doesn't precisely meet his definition." Yet you seem to have your ideas of what rights should be ceded in free software licenses and are criticizing people who who prefer copyleft for not following your preferences. Or maybe you just can't get by the use of the word free. I'd recommend Jeremy Allison's thoughts on that. If I recall, the BSDers who were harrassing him with this argument he in exasperation told, "fine, you can have the word free, whatever." Point is you don't have to use GPL software if it's that bothersome to you not to be able to include it in non-GPL works and that they're not unclear about what they're trying to accomplish with copyleft.
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Old 6th June 2014
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The main differences between BSD & GNU licencing to me is that BSD is totally free of any uneccessary impediments on its use, it just basically states 'don't say you wrote it'.

Whereas, under GNU licencing you are obliged to provide the source code when asked to do so, (you used to have to supply it alongside your program at one time).

I believe in FREE software for the masses, to do the normal regular things that people do.

However if someone wants to create a specialist program, I believe they should be able to licence it as they see fit, as long as they are not using someone elses work in it that has been licenced differently or not for commercial use. That is where the GNU licence seems to annoy some people.

Edit: I very much appreciate all programmers who give to the community so freely, no matter what licence they put it under.
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Last edited by bsd-keith; 6th June 2014 at 09:35 AM. Reason: Addendum
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Old 6th June 2014
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Originally Posted by thirdm View Post
I'll only remind you you started out with, "THAT is what bugs me so much about Stallman. He has a very narrow definition of "open source" and decries anyone who doesn't precisely meet his definition." Yet you seem to have your ideas of what rights should be ceded in free software licenses and are criticizing people who who prefer copyleft for not following your preferences. Or maybe you just can't get by the use of the word free.
That's probably a good assumption, that I can't get by the use of the word free. You don't call something "free" then attach taxes and fees to it...it ceases to be "free" at that point. That is basically my issue with Stallman. Call it overly optimistic or whatever you want (wording seems to be the core of this debate anyways heh), but if someone offers me something and says "it's free", I think of the traditional meaning of the word "free". To quote Stallman:

Quote:
Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”.
Free speech is a great way to think about it. I can't walk into a crowded theater and yell "fire", as that may cause harm to others. And in Stallman's eyes, proprietary software harms others. I completely get that.

But I disagree. Proprietary software is not the devil that Stallman believes it to be. Yeah, he's got some accurate points that companies DO utilize their licenses to screw their users over. I agree with him 100% on that. But the core of that issue is *not* proprietary software. 99.99% of the users out there do not give a flip if they have access to the source code, or even if bugs get fixed (unless it directly affects their workflow, of course), or to go a step further, most end users don't even care if security patches are put in place. Think of your typical Microsoft user, or typical Mac user. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've been called out to help a family member or friend with their "computer issues", and they're doing things like disabling Windows firewall while their machine in plugged directly into the internet with a public IP on it. I know you've had similar experiences so there's no need to expound on that.

For people like you and I, who do indeed care about source availability, proprietary software is not a good match, and we seek out other sources of software that we can tinker with. Beyond that, we are enforcing our preferences on others when we demand they release their source code.

Sure, I disagree with Stallman's policy that other developers release their source code. It's a political issue, not unlike government assistance (i.e. should homeless people go to their local church where they are likely to get assistance, or should the government raise taxes so they can assist the homeless? Think about that. It boils down to "do you trust others to do the right thing?" If yes, you trust the developers to release code free of encumberment. If not, you sue them into releasing their code).
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Old 6th June 2014
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99.99% of the users out there do not give a flip if they have access to the source code, or even if bugs get fixed (unless it directly affects their workflow, of course), or to go a step further, most end users don't even care if security patches are put in place. Think of your typical Microsoft user, or typical Mac user. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've been called out to help a family member or friend with their "computer issues", and they're doing things like disabling Windows firewall while their machine in plugged directly into the internet with a public IP on it. I know you've had similar experiences so there's no need to expound on that.
This is one of the points that leans me to the BSD licensing side (as opposed to other points leaning me to the GPL/GNU side). I think of my roommate. She absolutely loves her Macs (whatever, there's no accounting for taste). GNU, BSDs, or any other group producing free software has nothing I think would suffice for her. Perhaps I could set her up with Gnustep (or Etoile if it were finished), but she'd get crabby with me. So here FreeBSD (and others) helped a commercial entity make something someone's happy with. Who am I to judge that a bad thing when it's not clear if free software can produce things that will please everyone? I've read similar enthusiasm over Lispworks' compiler combined with doubt whether free software could do as well (the person made vague economic arguments that sounded plausible to me).

It happens I was reading today some of the comments on an IBM employee's blog about setting up OpenOffice under Apache (it was linked from an old Bradley Kuhn blog entry). If you'll remember some interpreted that as an attack on Libreoffice and copyleft. It was interesting in the comments, Jeremy Allison (geez, how many times have I mentioned this guy -- but he's an entertaining speaker, nearly as funny as Bob Beck, check him out) suggested FreeBSD made out poorly in their interaction with Apple. I suppose he was thinking Apple made out like gangbusters on their code, since Apple has some astronomically larger number of users than FreeBSD. But then a FreeBSD contributor chimed in saying that it was great for them. Some of them got jobs out of it and lots of useful code comes back down to FreeBSD from Apple.

Link: http://www.robweir.com/blog/2011/06/...penoffice.html

So it's complicated. I can see decent arguments all around (and some bad too -- for instance, the Why you should use the BSD License article on FreeBSD's site is mostly dreadful IMO).

Last edited by thirdm; 6th June 2014 at 09:04 PM. Reason: typo
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Old 16th September 2014
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I do not agree with a few of his ideas, but I do agree with most of them. Perhaps a good way of stating my is opinion is; I agree with his general concept of free software, but do not agree with a few of the specifics. Whether one likes him or not, his influence on open source in general, and Linux in particular, cannot be denied. And of course, it is not necessary to like someone to respect them. Although I have lost a small amount of respect for him due to his silence concerning the systemd threat/conspiracy/lunacy.
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Old 16th September 2014
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Although I have lost a small amount of respect for him due to his silence concerning the systemd threat/conspiracy/lunacy.
That is funny. I have been wondering about this myself. Wonder if he loses to many friends my going either way?

I dislike that he went on Alex Jones' Show. Hard to take someone serious after they've been on Alex's show. Not that upstanding persons (whatever that means) haven't been on his show. Its just that I have always looked at Alex Jones' show as the place to go for people that like conspiracy but not actual researching. That show is more about attention (show biz) than spreading information.
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Old 16th September 2014
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I have no idea who Alex Jones is. Shows how out of the loop I am. Like when my students ask me how much I like (insert celebrity's name), I usually have never heard of the person.
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Old 17th September 2014
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Don't worry, you're not the only one who doesn't know who s/he is......
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Old 17th September 2014
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I have no idea who Alex Jones is. Shows how out of the loop I am. Like when my students ask me how much I like (insert celebrity's name), I usually have never heard of the person.
Maybe you're just not loopy (caught in a endless (re)cycle of trends).
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Old 19th September 2014
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To understand why Richard Stallman doesn't actually care about UNIX and why GNU (GNU's Not UNIX) is not really about UNIX - look no further than his own comments:

https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html
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I never used Unix (not even for a minute) until after I decided to develop a free replacement for it (the GNU system). I chose that design to follow because it was portable and seemed fairly clean. I was never a fan of Unix; I had some criticisms of it too. But it was ok overall as a model.
This is why he has not commented on systemd thus far - because it's got the "right" licence and that seems to be all that matters.
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Old 19th September 2014
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I find it interesting that after all these years, his dreamed of GNU OS is still nowhere near to becoming a reality. The closest GNU has gotten is the recently released Gnusense, which is just, as far as I know, a Libre Debian. They created the user applications a long time ago, but the kernel is still being created? Interesting. But then, I have not thoroughly researched the developments. So I do not know how many factors I am unaware or.
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Old 19th September 2014
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The latest release of GNU Hurd was just about a year ago.
I can't comment further, as I've never used it.
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