

Taking a Principled Position on Software Freedom - keyist
http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/20090714-00

======
cschwarm
I find this an interesting take on the subject. I'd use the same line of
thought to argue for the opposite position: it's a good thing if a statement
could be proven to be wrong! Arguments that rely on a set of empirical claims
of superiority are good arguments, because they can be tested. Statements that
are not refutable -- such as statements about the superiority of a subjective
moral -- are bad arguments.

For the record: Here's one Open Source advocate who applauds LinuxCare for
saving themselves by abandoning Open Source. I guess, the current users of
LinuxCare's products probably agree. Yes, I advocate for "proprietary
development methodologies in areas where evidence seems to show that they are
more effective".

An idea is not inevitably good just because it's guided by principle.

In fact, I believe most ideas that are guided by principles -- especially
those that claim moral superiority of a certain principle -- seem to turned
always into human tragedies.

------
frossie
Summary: there are two camps of open source advocacy: those who state their
position on matters of principle, and those who make their case based on
promoting measurable quantities such as higher quality or more flexible
software etc. Author believes the former is better because " _Principles are
based on a type of Utopianism; they are a statement of how we think things
should be"_ whereas the latter argument is open to obvious, demonstrable cases
where it is false.

While I have every sympathy for his intellectual position, as somebody who has
had to make a business case for using open source software, I have found the
vocal "efficiency" camp and its publicity invaluable when dealing with an
audience that is sceptical towards matters of principles.... on principle.
Yes, the superiority argument isn't always technically correct, but is
certainly more appealing to certain classes of people.

~~~
DarkShikari
I've always found there to be two primary camps as well, with the following
division.

The first group is the Stallman-esque group. They believe that people should
use software _because it is free_ (free as in libre, of course, not gratis).
Being good is secondary; the fact that something is free should be sufficient
for people to prefer it over other solutions. This has potential negative
consequences for developers; a developer who believes in this may be less
motivated to make his program better than proprietary equivalents because he
does not believe that it _needs_ to be so for him to promote his program as an
alternative. The Stallman-esque group also tends to believe that marketing is
more important than engineering; open source is about advocacy more than it is
about coding.

The second group is the Linus-esque group. These people believe that the
primary goal of open source is to produce, via a community process, _really
good software_ ; freedom is secondary. That software will become popular not
because of marketing and advocacy, but merely because it is so good that its
engineering merit will stand on its own. Users should use what software is
best for them--it's the developers' job to ensure that "best" means "free".
These people are often seen as "impure" by the Stallman-esque group because
when asked for the best way to set up a system, they will often include non-
free software in the mix--they would design the system for maximum
effectiveness, not maximum freeness, since their goal is to produce the best
system possible, not the most free.

From what I've been able to tell, the divide between these two groups seems
practically unbridgeable; the philosophy differs so much that the two sides
often completely fail to understand each other, much like the divide between
GPL and BSD advocates.

~~~
frossie
That is what he describes, his point being that rationalisation aside, let's
face it we do this because it is _fun_.

" _the divide between these two groups seems practically unbridgeable_ "

I don't know enough to comment about whether that is accurate; but I would say
that this is one divide that doesn't necessarily need bridging. We're not
talking about VHS versus Betamax here; as long as both sides keep doing what
they are doing for whatever reasons, everybody wins.

~~~
DarkShikari
But often the sides come into conflict. For example, most recently, the
Stallman-esque group started a massive marketing campaign for Theora--it's
free, so we should use it. This caused the Linus-esque group incredible
aggravation, because they cannot understand why someone would want to promote
something that is technically inferior in many ways. Equally, the Stallman-
esque group cannot understand why the Linus-esque group would even consider
using multimedia formats covered by patents--why would anyone do that?--it's
against the open source philosophy--and away the argument goes again.

