

Interview with Richard Stallman, Founder of Free Software Foundation - elayabharath
http://www.alearningaday.com/2012/03/richard-stallman-was-at-national.html

======
Teapot
Now we need another clever thing. A GPL-ish set of Rules for for-profit
business.

Think about it, if for example Google had a 'We're Legally bound to never be
evil' eithical rule.

Does such a thing already exist perhaps? Or is there some wierdness that
prevent it from happening?

~~~
riffraff
defining "evil" would be a good start, though we seem to have failed to do it
for the last ten thousand years :)

More seriously: there are plenty of "ethical certification" thingies, and lots
of finance entities who only work with "ethical" products.

This things just don't seem to have trickled down from (arguably) major evils
businesses (child exploitation, war profits, environmental disruption etc) to
lesser ones (predatory pricing, patent trolling, exclusive dealing etc).

Possibly a matter of time, but a long one IMVHO.

~~~
For_Iconoclasm
> defining "evil" would be a good start

I think the best way to tackle this would be defining specific tenets the way
that the FSF does with freedoms 0-4. They don't just say "You have to be
free!" ... there is the legally-binding license itself, containing some light
legalese, as well as the 4 freedoms specifying the idea to the common man,
despite clearly.

So, a license that comprises "We won't be evil. We promise!" wouldn't be good
enough, but the some clear rules could be set. The non-evil most people would
care about would probably be related to privacy.

I agree that specifying all of the business practices which many people
believe are evil would be a non-trivial task dependent on the nature of the
company.

------
ozzzy
He says there are malicious features on mobile phones which enable the state
to listen to you at any time.

Is there any reality in this statement?

~~~
mseebach
Even if there is, the vast majority of phone calls passes through government
controlled telephone exchanges, so it wouldn't matter.

~~~
ozzzy
But he implies that you can be listened even when you are not talking on the
phone.

~~~
crististm
Yes - and he is right. The phone is in permanent connection with the network
anyway - it's some code away from opening the audio to listen to your room
conversation.

~~~
pre
My name begins with the letter A, so I get quite a few accidental calls when
someone leaves their phone unlocked in their pocket.

Mostly you just hear an incomprehensible garbled rustling noise.

Spying on someone by remotely turning on the phone in their pocket isn't
usually going to work.

~~~
ldh
Sometimes it's not. But if you're determined enough to spy on somebody via the
audio on their phone, you will likely be persistent and eventually overhear
something the person would prefer you didn't. If I were concerned about being
spied on I wouldn't dismiss it so easily.

------
GNUAerospace
GNU Aerospace our GPL rules for a for-profit business.

[http://forum.avsim.net/topic/367152-a-new-crowdfunding-
based...](http://forum.avsim.net/topic/367152-a-new-crowdfunding-based-
business-model/)

~~~
Kliment
That idea is pretty awesome, but why limit employee compensation in such an
unflexible way?

~~~
GNUAerospace
The idea is to empower worldwide collaborative software development.

People get too hung up on what other employees are being paid, which is used
as the benchmark for the valuation of their contribution to the project.

This tension blows projects apart, and explains why there are no prior GPL
based business models (either the code is contributed gratis by individual
contributors, or a non GPL based corporation releases code in support of their
primary revenue stream in the sale of services, consulting, ustome
development, sale of hardware).

By focusing on reasonable expenses, this levels the global playing field, and
disables the compensation friction.

In the end, it is the consumer which must feel satisfied, that they are
getting value for money spent. And it should therefore be left to the consumer
to decide which persons to award higher compensation in a bonus.

~~~
Kliment
I don't think this will work. This is not how it works in any of the open
source based companies I know, and I know a few.

