
The Symmetry of My UnAmerican McCarthyist Cancer (the GPL) - mariuz
http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2012/12/14/unamerican-mccarthyist-cancer.html
======
belorn
Reading the original comment made on Slashdot by Mark, I find the following
part noticeable:

>If your way of seeing the world IS genuinely more productive, effective,
efficient, insightful and usable, then you should be confident that you will
win in the long term, and folk who dabble in a different way of working will
come to realize that you're right eventually

A lot of people seems to strongly believe in this, and I find it a very naive
way of thinking. The world is a very interconnected, and the FLOSS world is no
exception to this. By accepting non-free drivers, more people will be affected
by the damage and dangers of non-free drivers.

Drivers are run at a permission level higher than any application. With the
exception of BIOS code, hardware drivers can perform any stealth action and be
verifiable undetectable. Thus, criticize non-free drivers, is not about
testing which method is more productive, effective, efficient, insightful and
usable. Its about requiring that the user gets the key to the computer. If we
want security in ring 3, ring 1-2 can't be code covered in secrecy. If we
accept it, then all security must be assumed to have the hardware driver
developer at the top of the trust chain.

Non-free drivers are not primarily an issue about licences.

~~~
justincormack
People will probably come around to this when their trust is violated but
maybe not before...

~~~
belorn
We already have firmware blobs that do this, ie, printer firmware that add
micro dots, and refuses to print images matching a fingerprint database.

There also been drivers thats been sold/offered by the hardware manufacture,
but that was pre-infected. Razer was one company who had this problem, (
[http://countermeasures.trendmicro.eu/razer-downloads-
distrib...](http://countermeasures.trendmicro.eu/razer-downloads-distributing-
malware/)), and there have been usb-memory sticks with this problem. This is
not something intended by the manufacture, but it shows why the trust put in
them is not well placed.

------
pygy_
_[...] Fortunately, I am pretty sure verbatim copying something into your own
brain isn't copyright infringement (yet)._

I found that footnote enlightening. Passed as a quip, but actually profound.
Wow.

~~~
azakai
This kind of reasoning is in fact why I oppose most copyright law.

Copying something into your brain is always legal. It's ok to hear a joke and
tell it to your friend. But technology is basically augmenting our mental
capabilities. A smartphone with a camera is a device that lets you remember
images better than your brain can - if our brains could already do it, we
wouldn't need the smartphone.

It happens that the smartphone is external to your brain, but over time, we
might add that functionality to your glasses (which is closer), then maybe to
your eye sockets or cornea, or eventually integrate it directly with your
brain.

At which point, laws preventing you from copying things are basically laws
that force you to limit the capabilities of human beings.

Current copyright law is based on human limitations - humans are bad at
remembering verbatim entire books, so we have copyright laws for that. We
don't have copyright laws for short jokes because we can remember those. But
that framework of law stands in opposition to actually improving human
capabilities. That's fundamentally wrong.

~~~
bkuhn
We already have these restrictions on us now; that joke in my post was in part
to point this out. I know most of the Dead Kennedys songs verbatim. If I
perform them publicly, it's copyright infringement already. If I write them
down from my own memory, it's copyright infringement too.

Just getting rid of copyright law is dangerous, though. It'd be unilateral
disarmament, because there are plenty of other mechanisms, like EULAs, that
can be used to control what was previously copyrighted. We'd need massive
reform of all the legal systems at once, lest we eviscerate the only tools we
have (i.e., copyleft) while leaving all the opponents' tools in place.

------
rogerbinns
I believe the protocol documentations made by Microsoft were not done out of
the goodness of Microsoft's heart, but rather were the result of government
action in the US and European Union in the last decade.

~~~
meaty
Not strictly how it is. Here's what I saw: They were preparing the
specifications before the government action. I worked for an organisation
which was working with them at the time and they were pushing drafts of their
documentation to us - the same ones you see on the Open Specification Promise.

To be honest, the government action halted this process because they had to
get a shit load of legal people involved.

I think Microsoft has two camps inside. Those who really are technology
focused and the marketing and management team. The latter are the ones doing
all the damage. The technology people I genuinely feel sorry for.

~~~
yuhong
Well, I think they first tried charging royalties before finally disclosing
the docs and a patent list to Samba on royalty-free conditions. See this:
<http://www.samba.org/samba/PFIF/PFIF_history.html>
<http://www.samba.org/samba/PFIF/PFIF_agreement.html>

~~~
meaty
They did for some things. There are several factions inside Microsoft, some
more respectable than others [1]. We managed to get MSRPC/DCOM documentation
out of them no problems at all. TBH there was very little internal
documentation on it apparently, most of it being inside 4-5 peoples' heads.

[1] Small note to IE team: fuck you. I opened a genuine defect with steps to
reproduce on Connect 19 months ago which was a regression between IE8 and IE9
and it was canned earlier today with the old bug vs feature thing. This is
after 6 months of arguing with PAID UP GOLD PARTNER support over the issue as
well which fucked up any IE upgrade plans for our clients for 6 months.

~~~
yuhong
To be honest, MSRPC and DCOM was based on DCE RPC and MS donated DCOM to the
Open Group. See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDCE>

~~~
lukeh
The Open Group's DCOM implementation wasn't open source. Also, MSRPC/DCOM is
just an RPC layer, the real value/lock-in was in the protocols built on top of
them, such as Active Directory.

dcerpc.org has a maintained version of the OSF DCE RPC runtime (this bounced
around from the FreeDCE project, to PADL, then Novell, Likewise and now
Apple).

------
Symmetry
It's not an inevitable law of human society that if a group is unfairly
attacked by some party cannot then go on to unfairly attack someone else.
While it's easy to think of victimhood and especially one's own victimhood as
an attribute, it's really a transitive relationship.

Not to say which of the FSF or Cannonical is right in this dispute, I'm not
sure myself, but this article made a seriously problematic argument.

~~~
bkuhn
(I'm the author of the article)

I don't think of myself as a victim here. Indeed, Microsoft's attacks back in
2001 drove me to work hard and learn how to run a non-profit in a time when
it's constantly under political attack. This has served me very well, and I
use it today when my current org (Software Freedom Conservancy) is attacked
for its GPL enforcement work constantly.

Canonical, Ltd.'s attacks are more of the same. My blog post is about how
Canonical really is just coming after the same group of people that Microsoft
once was. I don't feel I'm a victim of either entity or any of the individuals
involved. By contrast, they are my political rivals bent in doggedly pursuing
their political agenda while I pursue mine. That's an overly Hegelian analysis
of the situation, but hopefully that gives a flavor of what I'm thinking about
in juxtaposing the two events politically.

~~~
Symmetry
May I suggest that there's a big difference between being called the Devil,
and being called a witch hunter after you accuse someone else of being the
Devil? I presume that when Microsoft called the FSF a cancer you didn't just
sit there but made counter-claims about why Microsoft was saying that, right?

I do think that Canonical was in the wrong on this particular issue, but
there's a big difference between someone who is a serious enemy of your
organization, and someone who is just hurt due to the mean (if more or less
justified) things you said about them and is lashing out based on that.

------
rickmb
Not only is Shuttleworth's reference to McCarthyism extremely distasteful (and
something he should be apologizing for), the bitter irony is that he's doing
exactly what he accuses the free software fundamentalists of, to quote the man
himself: _"ranting and being a dick"_.

Throwing a near-Godwin into the debate is not exactly being mature an
constructive.

Especially since he should be fully aware that it may be in the short term
interest of FLOSS to be pragmatic, we need voices like RMS and the FSF to
remain alert for the long term consequences, and dismissing such a voice as
dangerous political extremists hurts everyone.

~~~
sbuk
To be perfectly honest none of the parties come out of this with any dignity.
I love using F/LOSS. I love the learning that comes with it. I contribute
where I can, mainly financially and with help. But...

The F/LOSS community's attitude in general _stinks_ and this whole sorry
affair highlights why I believe many are put off by F/LOSS. Its proponents are
generally condescending, arrogant, self righteous, sanctimonious, rude,
judgemental and overly hostile. There are a few diamonds in the rough,
anecdotally the ones I have encountered work for Canonical. This infighting
and idealism is doing the F/LOSS community far more harm than Microsoft ever
did. To counter with the predictable howls of derision or claims of ad hominem
and strawmen fallacies is to ignore a serious issue that the community has,
itself.

------
slurgfest
I didn't read this use of the word "McCarthyist" in that way.

It is really extravagant to use this to smear Canonical as being just as bad
as Microsoft-in-the-90s. Really? What is Canonical doing to destroy GPL?
Nothing. In the worst case they have used inflammatory language to ask GPL
zealots to leave them alone, not to mount some massive assault on Open Source.

------
edderly
I've worked extensively with proprietary drivers in Linux and other OS
environments. If you take a pure technical point A to B view of the world,
there is little doubt that you should be able to develop better drivers in an
open source environment, at least in the long term.

McCarthyism feels like an uncomfortable or inappropriate analogy, but one area
where 'open-sourcists' are often utterly unhelpful is the plain business fact
that proprietary stacks are commonly implemented for multiple operating
systems. If we tried to tie this to the McCarthyist analogy I suppose this
issue is like trying to explain that you believe in the redistribution of
wealth whilst trying to prove you're not a communist (it is a weird analogy
for a corporatist isn't it?).

The long and the short of it is that hardware vendors are trying to do the
best by their customers, not always in the right way, and uncompromising
zealotry and isolated focus on Linux doesn't help.

~~~
icebraining
Free Software (not open source), which is what the author is talking about, is
_not_ a technical view of the world; it's a philosophical position on liberty
and ethics. The fact that the drivers would (possibly) be better is irrelevant
to the project.

------
yk
I have nothing to add, except that the post reminded me of this
<http://xaharts.org/funny/i/Microsoft_Linux_ad.jpg> MS ad ( from the GPL-is-
cancer days).

------
Nux
Money is the Devil's eye, they say.

------
jspthrowaway2
The identi.ca discussion on this[1] is fairly interesting and, I think,
illustrates some of the zealotry that Mark Shuttleworth was hinting at in his
Slashdot post. Nicolas Delvaux[2] made a very clear post admitting that Mark
didn't choose his words carefully (implying he disagreed with the way Mark
presented his argument), but nonetheless he agreed with _the underlying point_
:

> _Mark doesn't always choose his words wisely but I agree with his point. We
> can be confident that 100% free software will win in the long run [b]ut this
> won't happen if we don't increase our market share first. To get there we
> need to be pragmatic about users needs. Usable computers for example. A non-
> free driver is better than nothing for the people out there who don't care
> about licences._

That is a totally reasonable argument, and I sensed right away that Nicolas
was distancing himself from the inflammatory rhetoric and attacking the
underlying point itself, which is a good one.

I totally agree with that point, but I don't see myself ever saying that to
Bradley Kuhn's face because even though Nicolas was very careful to highlight
the form of the argument as distasteful, Bradley still sidestepped the (good)
opinion and badgered Nicolas to death regarding Mark Shuttleworth's rhetoric:

> _@delvauxnic, I'm sorry to seethat you agree w/ @sabdfl that those of us
> opposed to proprietary !Linux drivers are insecure McCarthyist dicks_

I do not see Nicolas ever saying that. Look at the rest of the post! He's
talking about long-term FOSS strategy, not Communism! He agreed with the
underlying argument, not the delivery. I've encountered this before, and it's
sidestepping a salient argument based on one tiny inconvenience that can be
pounced upon. Nicolas _never_ agreed with the comparison to McCarthyism, but
Bradley Kuhn pounced on that straw man quite deftly.

> _@delvauxnic, saying @sabdfl "didn't chose his words wisely" says "Not that
> I would say that, but he's right". You didn't say he was wrong._

The first part of this observation is untrue, and the second part is an
irrational expectation for discussion. I can agree with the substance of an
argument without agreeing with the way it was delivered or the specific words
that make it up, and I am _NOT_ required to apologize for someone else's
remarks, tone, or delivery in doing so. Because Nicolas refused to do that,
Bradley left this parting shot:

> _@delvauxnic, it was more than the "form" that's wrong. It's wrong to call
> people those things. You & I 've nothing more to discuss, it seems_

Completely ignore the point, keep attacking the same thing. Since you won't
argue with what Bradley desires you to argue with, you will be shut down with
a final dismissal. It's just distasteful, and I hate when a reasonable
conversation gets punctuated with an icy "well, go fuck yourself, we have
nothing left to talk about if that's your opinion".

I've left out the actual discussion about the point that Bradley did
participate in, because this sort of stuff is just as bad as Mark's comments,
in my opinion, and it makes it _just as tough_ to have a reasonable
conversation.

This is why I hate having any kind of discussion with people who are
passionate about their beliefs with respect to capital-F Free software. I'm
sorry to single out the group, but this is quite demonstrably how every
discussion I've had that's critical of Free software has gone. There is no
middle ground. It's all _us_ and _them_. Either you're all the way, or you're
part of the problem. I seem to recall reading a Stallman essay that even
outright said that.

It is simply impossible to argue and, eventually, you will have the door
slammed on you regardless of your point. I am not claiming that Nicolas's
argument was perfect, but he made some _extraordinarily_ salient points and I
wish Bradley had addressed those rather than badger him personally for daring
to agree.

[1]: <http://identi.ca/conversation/97515496>

[2]: <http://blog.malizor.org/>

~~~
bkuhn
@jspthrowaway2: You selectively quoted from the thread. You specifically leave
out where @delvauxnic and I settled the miscommunication (I've quoted the rest
below). I think it was disingenuous of you to selectively edit in that way.

Not only that, but you'll see I never called @delvauxnic "insecure", a
"McCarthyist", a "dick" or anything else. I just kept pointed out that he
seemed to be avoiding denouncing @sadbfl's own name-calling: in which he
called people like me all of those names. Also, while that very thread was
going on, (as you note) I was discussing substantive issues with @delvauxnic.
I responded to every one of his salient points and engaged in debate. Your
characterization of that conversion is completely inaccurate, IMO, and I
encourage others to click over, read the whole thing for themselves, and make
their own conclusions.

Here's the resolution of the subthread you quote from above:

@delvauxnic says:

> I never said that it was acceptable. I understand that you feel offended but
> please have some hindsight and read again my comments.

I replied:

> my concern:you seem to avoid saying outright "@sabdfl's name-calling is
> wrong";You could say so & still agree w/his other points

@delvauxnic replied:

>Once again, the style of this comparison (name-calling if you prefer) was
definitely wrong. But what is important (THE POINT) was exactly...

I replied:

> thank you for saying that it was wrong. I disagree that "it's an informal
> interview" is a legitimate excuse for @sabdfl though.

@delvauxnic also said:

> But yes, "@sabdfl's name-calling was wrong". Are you happy now that I
> reformulated what I said in my 1st comment?

I replied:

> @delvauxnic, I'm sorry, I thought you were subtly avoiding it; it seems that
> I was wrong about that; I get you thought you'd said it already

~~~
jspthrowaway2
Although you resolved it later, you started it the way I have described, which
is what I am taking issue with. I don't care how the argument ended, I'm
taking issue with how it started. Most people lose interest when shut down the
way you shut that guy down.

How is it remotely logical to expect someone to denounce someone else's
rhetoric before they're allowed to discuss the argument with you? I'm not
going to apologize to you for something that somebody else said, but if I
agree _with his points_ , you know what, I agree with his points.

~~~
bkuhn
@jsthrowaway2, your analysis just doesn't take into account how that
conversation evolved. We were discussing different issues in multiple
subthreads all at the same time. In the subthread you mention, the fellow was
initially coming across defending @sabdfl's assessments. He clarified that,
and that subthread ended, and the others with the salient points continued.

I challenge you to find any argument that he made, salient or otherwise, that
I failed to respond to in that thread.

~~~
jspthrowaway2
> _In the subthread you mention, the fellow was initially coming across
> defending @sabdfl's assessments._

...in your analysis, which was demonstrably wrong. I, and probably many other
people who read his opening shot, (correctly) interpreted it as disagreeing
with the way Mark phrased his arguments. The hint is where he says that Mark
didn't choose his words carefully, which you interpreted as meaning "I agree
and I would have phrased the exact same thing differently!", which is just
asinine. You interpreted his remarks the way _you_ wanted to, which wasn't
entirely square with reality.

Again, I don't care how the conversation evolved, because the guy persisted
far longer than I would have (and I give him extreme credit for doing so). The
standard argument style seems to be "straw man, straw man, straw man, you and
I have nothing to discuss". It is to his credit that he continued and was able
to reach an amicable conclusion, but I think the majority of people would roll
their eyes and just disengage you at that point. It took him several back-and-
forths just to get you to stop badgering him for Mark Shuttleworth's words,
for Christ's sake.

Let's forget the entire rest of the conversation and let's focus on this:

A: FOSS people are McCarthyists. And the idealism impedes forward motion in an
indirect way.

B: Hey, you know, he's right that the balance between idealism and pragmatism
is a bit too far one way. Here's some thoughts about that. Why don't we
discuss it?

C: I'm sorry to see that you agree that we're McCarthyists.

I'd disengage you at C. He persisted, and kudos to him. That's what I'm having
an issue with. You already tried building a straw man with me, claiming that I
was being disingenuous by editing the conversation, implying that I've
introduced falsehoods and manipulated the truth; I did _not_ edit the
conversation, but I _did_ selectively quote the portions that I would like to
discuss. Selective quotation is not editing.

~~~
bkuhn
In politics, it's very common to use phrasing like "he didn't chose his words
wisely, but I agree with his point." as code for: "I'm diplomatically saying I
agree with what he did". I see that the fellow didn't mean it that way, and
there was probably a language barrier going on too (I suspect, but don't know
for sure, that his native language isn't English), and he was furthermore
frustrated with the 140 character format.

Regarding the latter of which, BTW, I was giving him advice on how he might
fix his 140 char problem in _another_ parallel thread. We were having two
other parallel threads too, on the "salient points" you mention. Look at the
time stamps on the dents if you want to confirm all that. All of it happened
together. The Internet is a wonderful thing: you can have efficient
conversations in parallel in semi-synchronous time. You're analogy treats the
whole thing like I stonewalled him on that one issue while refusing to reply
on any other issue. The timestamps and threads just don't support your claim
there.

I again point out that I _didn't_ resort to name calling and I wasn't
disrespectful, and I apologized when I realized that he truly believed he'd
already made the statement I was asking him to make. You compare me to @sabdfl
above; note that @sabdfl name-called, was disrespectful, and it's not the
first time he's done that, either.

Meanwhile, I don't think it's reasonable to ask someone to always respond to
everyone on the Internet who comment at them, and I believe it's completely
reasonable to filter away people for all sorts of reasons. It seemed that this
fellow _might_ have been doing standing up for @sabdfl's outrageous claims. I
discussed that fact with him on on thread to get a sense of whether or not he
was, while I was nevertheless _still_ responding to his other points another.
I admit I got close at one point to shutting down at one point. But, I still
read his next clarification and we came to an understanding.

This is an example of people who disagree but are still communicating well and
sorting something out. This is an example of _useful discourse_. I realize you
see it as exactly the opposite. I just think you're wrong about that, I'm
sorry. I encourage others here to read the whole thread over on identi.ca and
decide for themselves which of us is right.

I'm about to to go to bed, and I'm sure I won't have time to respond to you
further here, as the odds I'll remember to check this site again -- which I
don't normally read -- is pretty low. You can email me if you want to discuss
it further.

~~~
jspthrowaway2
> _In politics, it's very common to use phrasing like "he didn't chose his
> words wisely, but I agree with his point." as code for: "I'm diplomatically
> saying I agree with what he did"._

Now I get it. Dealing with the political world for this long has made you
treat everything as political by default. The guy was straight talking with
you on identi.ca, not making a political statement nor speaking on camera. He
wasn't "speaking in code," as you later deduced after going back and forth a
few times. Your assumption was for the worst of his argument, not the best,
and that you were presumptuous enough to tell him how to "fix" something that
you misinterpreted with an unfair base assumption is even more asinine.

> _I again point out that I didn't resort to name calling and I wasn't
> disrespectful_

I know, which is why I ignored this irrelevant statement the first time,
because it was a straw man then and still is. I'm not accusing you of name
calling nor stooping to the level of those who called you McCarthyists, nor am
I accusing you of being disrespectful. I think you shot this guy down fairly
hard when he brought up a point with you, and it's that style of argument, the
default-hostile world view, that I _really_ get annoyed by out of your camp.

You could say I'm bringing this up because I want to have a reasonable
conversation with you, and people like you, without spending a few back-and-
forths saying something to you the exact way you want it to be said to you.
The technology world is not out to get you. We're not speaking in code at your
expense. Most people in this audience here on Hacker News are sympathetic to
FOSS because a lot of us build our livelihood on it.

You do have friends in the world, and I think this guy was trying to be your
friend. You've either been trained or trained yourself to regard everybody as
an enemy from the get-go, and that's what I'm trying to get across to you. I
know that running the FSF has exposed you to a lot of bilious argument against
your very existence, but this guy wasn't remotely agreeing with Mark or being
political, he was just _having a conversation_. It took a while for him to get
that through to you, and speaking for myself, I would have given up long
before he was successful.

This is coming from somebody who has built his entire career upon FOSS and
believes in its success. You'll often see people say something like "I love
FOSS, but its fan club leaves a lot to be desired". Things like this are why.

> _This is an example of useful discourse._

It eventually was. It sure as shit didn't start that way.

> _I encourage others here to read the whole thread over on identi.ca and
> decide for themselves which of us is right._

I really hate when people speak past me while replying to me. It's dismissive
and belittling.

> _I'm about to to go to bed, and I'm sure I won't have time to respond to you
> further here, as the odds I'll remember to check this site again -- which I
> don't normally read -- is pretty low. You can email me if you want to
> discuss it further._

I'm so glad this was edited in after I spent ten minutes carefully crafting a
response. What a waste of time.

~~~
bkuhn
I was waiting for your reply and couldn't wait anymore. I have to work
tomorrow, you see -- I work 7 days a week on Free Software, so I just can't
stay up late.

Anyway, I did hit reload one last time and saw your reply, but I assure you
this has to be the last one but I welcome you to email me if you'd like.

The reason I used that political way of interacting with him was that I have
been one of Canonical, Ltd.'s critics for a long time -- back before it was
popular to "pile onto" Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu, etc. (I noted that in my
blog post in the section I talk about why I stopped; they'll be more on the
next episode of Free as in Freedom audcast [0] released next week.)

I've found that there are a lot of people out there in the Ubuntu community
who really do treat Mark like he is, as his title insists, a Dictator for Life
and simply are his proxies out defending him. Again, I'm using a politicians'
word -- proxies -- and a politician's analysis. But, the fact is, there are a
lot of people out there, and many on identi.ca, who proxy for @sabdfl.

I admit that I incorrectly assumed that fellow was one of them. I think you're
taking that one conversation and attempting, in a confirmation bias [1] sort
of way, to extrapolate that it shows some principle that's always at work in
conversations with people like me. Fact is, _despite_ that I suspected the
fellow was acting like a proxy, I still engaged with him in multiple threads
in parallel, just in case I was wrong (turned out I was), _precisely_ to avoid
the _very_ problem you're accusing me of in this thread.

Setting aside the fact that you seem upset that I don't really use this site
often, and that I clearly don't keep the same sleep schedule and/or am in the
same time-zone as you, it seems we're having the type of conversation and
discourse you want. Yet, you've framed the conversation to talk about this
meta-issue of "I can't talk to you people" _rather_ than have the conversation
about whatever it is you want to talk to Free Software zealots like me about.

I'm sorry you've had bad experiences in communication with some Free Software
hard-cores. I hope I haven't been one. I still don't think, for various
reasons I've stated (the most important one being the one you keep ignoring:
that there were parallel threads going on), that the one I had with that
fellow on identi.ca is an example that supports your claim. I completely
believe you that you've had frustrating conversations of that nature with
others. I know they happen and I will validate that point for you. I just
don't think this example was one of them.

I wish you a good $timezone_greeting, but mine is "late in the night" right
now for a guy pushing forty-years-old in the US/Eastern time zone, so please
do email me if you want to discuss further.

[0] <http://faif.us/>

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias>

~~~
jspthrowaway2
I'm not begrudging you sleep, I was just annoyed it was edited in while I was
in the text window replying to you (and not furiously refreshing). You're even
mischaracterizing _that_ by trying to say I'm annoyed you don't often use
Hacker News, which isn't accurate _or logical_ on any plane of reality.

