
Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2007) - fouc
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
======
sn41
In the years to come, I believe free software will be recognised as one of the
paradigmatic changes in how science itself is done. Now chemists and
biologists have started talking about making data openly available and so
forth. It's a shame that RMS has to spout forth on every issue, and in the
current climate of outrage, science may have lost an important
transformational voice.

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.

~~~
Frondo
The complaints about stallman aren't a matter of thoughtcrime, they're a
matter of entirely inappropriate behavior, not just once but repeatedly, over
the course of decades.

This was the one that disturbed me the most:

"Going to an RMS talk in the early 90s and meeting with him in person was
among the worst of my experienced - I was fifteen, still obviously underage,
and skipping gym class to hear him speak at a professional conference (that
I'd snuck into). He actually pointed to me in the back and proclaimed, into
the mic, "A GIRL!" causing the audience to turn and look. Mortifying. Then he
proceeded to gesture toward me every time he referred to "EMACS Virgins." (I
cannot believe that he is still doing the same talk 10+ years later.) I was
young and terrified of calling out someone that I'd previously idolized."

Did he commit a crime? No. Should we overlook it, and should he remain in a
leadership position at a prestigious organization? I can't imagine so; what
kind of message does that send?

Anecdote from:
[https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Experiences](https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Experiences)

~~~
4bpp
It's notable that all of these anecdotes are from back in the '90s and before;
since I assume Stallman's accusers dug around very hard for material and this
is the best they could find, it stands to reason that he probably has long
since improved in that regard. Moreover, the same cluster of people among
others has seriously been arguing ([https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-
richard-stallman-appendix...](https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-
stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88)) that a mattress in the office of someone
whose every public profile involves a mention of how he slept in the office
for years to develop GNU is unambiguous sexual innuendo (quote: "He kept the
door to his office open, to proudly showcase that mattress and all the
implications that went with it."). I am not sure how trustworthy their
accounts can be considered to begin with.

~~~
roenxi
I don't think it is even worth focusing in on specific issues; throwing mud at
Stallman's character is post-hoc rationalisation for a situation created by
thoughtcrime.

Even if the mud sticks, the major problem is that Stallman was forced to
resign after what appears to be (from public info) a moral panic. People
acting on moral panics is really bad; good process is slow process.

There are real complaints about Stallman. There have been since the 90s. If it
looked like he was resigning because of those then that would be a totally
different kettle of fish.

~~~
toofy
I don’t mean to quibble and I really want to strsss this next point: I’m
absolutely as lost as we all seem to be regarding how some people in our
communities should be dealt with. I don’t yet know how we’ll choose to handle
them. But anyway, using the term “thoughtcrime” feels incredibly disingenuous
and could easily be misconstrued as intentionally inflammatory. Obviously you
wouldn’t be intentionally inflammatory on HN so Im guessing you’re
accidentally using the incorrect term–since most of the accounts we’ve seen
are actual actions he has taken, it did not stay inside his mind, it was
manifested into actual action in the real world towards other people, this
just isn’t “thoughtcrime.” Even the people who were closest to him are very
publicly discussing that there were a great many actual real world actions
which made them feel everything from uncomfortable to intentionally avoiding
him, again, even the people closest to him say these incidents were happening
out in the open and happening regular enough to make them uncomfortable even
when they weren’t the targets of his behavior.

Like I said, I had an immense amount of respect for him, I met him quite a few
times, but I’m as lost as we all seem to be on how our communities should deal
with folks like this. Either way, let’s at least try our best on HN to not
accidentally inflame or accidentally mislead people.

~~~
lliamander
"Thoughtcrime" here refers to the mere expression of taboo opinions,
independent of a person's actual behavior towards others.

It seems to be the case that Stallman did engage in inappropriate behavior -
which perhaps should have been dealt with differently by CSAIL, MIT, the FSF
board etc. The appropriate response may very well have been to ask for his
resignation.

But those behaviors are not why he was asked to resign. Reference to his past
behavior was a post-hoc rationalization. It seems the real reason he was fired
was because he expressed a difference of opinion over the nature of Marvin
Minksy's guilt as a result of his association with Epstein.

Well, it wasn't even about the opinion he expressed, rather he was fired
because someone publicly misinterpreted his opinion, and that mistaken opinion
was picked up by the media.

Well, it wasn't even about the misinterpreted opinion. He was fired because
MIT is (I'm sure) facing some very serious scrutiny over it's entanglements
with Epstein, and the very real concern that one of it's famed professors may
have been a co-conspirator in a powerful and depraved criminal ring. The whole
Stallman affair serves as a nice deflection from that scrutiny.

As it stands, it does not even look like Minsky ever participated in said
criminal activity (as far as I can tell, the victim only said that she was
compelled to offer herself to Minsky, and another witness claimed that Minksy
turned her down). While there likely were many powerful people who were
knowing participants in Epstein's activities, it seems that Epstein was also
someone who liked to befriend very smart STEM folks, and not all of them may
have been aware as to what exactly Epstein was involved in.

~~~
foldr
People in public positions have always had to be careful about what they say.
It really lowers the quality of discussion to talk about "thought crime" in
this context. Stallman isn't being thrown into prison for expressing his
political views. He's being fired from his job (to the extent that it is a
job) for making ill-judged and offensive comments.

> It seems the real reason he was fired was because he expressed a difference
> of opinion over the nature of Marvin Minksy's guilt as a result of his
> association with Epstein.

No, thats not it. The inflammatory comment was the following:

>“It is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details
such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17".

This statement is as clear as mud, but it certainly seems to suggest that age
shouldn't be considered as a factor in determining consent.

~~~
ralfd
Do you think RMS argument is wrong here though? Why?

Age of consent in my (European) country is 16. Do you think we are all rapists
here? And looking up the law 14 is permissible (with a few caveats), even if
the other person is over 21.

In the United States it depends on the state. So Minsky would have done a
horrible rape crime in the US Virgin Islands (age of consent 18), but in
Massachusetts (age of consent 16) ... it would be all perfectly fine and
A-okay? This appeal to law seems a bit relativistic for making a moral
judgement?

~~~
foldr
I don't see how what you're saying is relevant. RMS said that the age was a
"minor detail". He didn't make any claim about what the age of consent should
be. Given his previous comments, one suspects he doesn't think there should be
one: [https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-
aug.html#05%20Jun...](https://www.stallman.org/archives/2006-may-
aug.html#05%20June%202006%20%28Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party%29)

~~~
ralfd
He said age "17 or 18" is a minor detail, which from my perspective, coming
from a country which has an age of consent under both, I agree.

~~~
foldr
I don't understand what he means by that. If there is an age of consent, then
some people will be under it by a year. What is the alternative? In your
country, there are also people a year under the age of consent. Whether not
someone is above the age of consent cannot possibly be considered a "minor
detail" in determining whether or not they consented.

~~~
hdfbdtbcdg
Put it this way a member of the Norwegian government has been widely reported
to have had sex with a drunk 17 year old (I am not certain whether the reports
are true since the teenager has declined to comment). If the age of consent
were 18 then the minister would have been investigated by the police. Since it
is 16 the minister continues to serve in the government without stigma. Big
difference in outcomes but the teenager is the same age.

Of course there has to be a cutoff. 16 seems reasonable to me. But I would not
have sex with any teenager.

~~~
foldr
>Of course there has to be a cutoff.

In which case the difference between $AGE and $AGE-1 is not a "minor detail".

~~~
hdfbdtbcdg
Legally speaking no it is not. Morally speaking yes it can be (depending on
many factors).

Some legal systems attempt to account for this. E.g. England and Wales have
two key ages. Having sex with someone under 16 might be (to use US terms) rape
or statutory rape depending on whether the person under 16 consented. Both are
illegal but rape more so. Having sex with someone under 13 is always rape
since children under 13 are not considered able to consent. But in some cases
16 is not the cutoff if e.g. a teacher has sex with a pupil under 18 this is
also always illegal. On the other hand if the defendant genuinely did not know
the chief witness was under 16 and there was consent this is a defense.

~~~
foldr
RMS was objecting to the legal definition of rape (hence the reference to it
varying between countries). But if you want to switch to the moral issue, then
that’s even more black and white. Is it ok for a 70 year old man in a position
of power to (hypothetically) have sex with a 17 year old girl? Erm, no. Can
sex in such circumstances be fully consensual? No, it can’t. So if your
suggestion is that RMS was making some kind of defensible moral argument, I
can’t imagine what it might be.

I happen to be English so I’m familiar with the laws in England. I don’t see
how any of that is relevant. The English law has cutoffs of exactly the same
kind (it’s just that the relevant age threshold is usually 16 rather than 18).
Obviously, no-one thinks that any such threshold can be completely non-
arbitrary. It is just as "morally absurd" for sex between two 16 year olds to
be legal and sex between a 16 year old and a 15 year old to be illegal. But
unless - like RMS - you fail to recognize that age is a factor in consent, you
have to make a cut somewhere. Apparently, from RMS's point of view, the most
troubling feature of such laws is that they may prevent 70 year old Profs
screwing 17 year old girls.

~~~
hdfbdtbcdg
> it ok for a 70 year old man in a position of power to (hypothetically) have
> sex with a 17 year old girl. Erm, no. Can sex in such circumstances be fully
> consensual? No, it can’t

I provided an example with a government minister in Norway already... The
minister in question remains in the government (the allegations are unproven
but would easily be enough to destroy a British politician). Clearly two very
similar western countries have very different moral stances on sex between
consenting adults!

With regards most of the rest of your post we are largely in agreement.

Except regarding your misunderstanding of RMS's position. I invite you to read
what he wrote yourself and revert if you think that is what he actually meant
to say! Or to edit your post.

~~~
foldr
We're both discussing what he wrote.

Terje Søviknes seems the closest match to your description. For an adult in a
position of power to get a 16 year old drunk and then have sex with them is
obviously wrong. It's certainly caused a scandal in Norway:
[https://exepose.com/2018/02/15/endless-sex-scandals-in-
norwe...](https://exepose.com/2018/02/15/endless-sex-scandals-in-norwegian-
politics-can-the-people-in-power-be-trusted/)

You apparently regard the case as one involving "consenting adults", even
though you describe the girl as drunk! It does seem that at bottom, the tiny
minority of people who think they've found a morally defensible interpretation
of RMS's comments are the people who are basically ok with adult men sexually
exploiting teenage girls. Or at least, who think it's very important to
sharply distinguish these people from "real" rapists.

I assume that the politician you are referring to remains in power because the
allegations are (you say) unproven.

~~~
hdfbdtbcdg
What made you pick out the Terje Søviknes case over the Trine Grande case?

~~~
foldr
So many to choose from! You didn't give a name, and I can't read your mind.

~~~
hdfbdtbcdg
I said explicitly that the minister in question remained in government, that
the teenager in question was 17 and that there was no suggestion of coercion.
There was no need to even name names these facts stand on their own.

------
michannne
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.

~~~
4bpp
But consider the possibility that this might be perfectly rational behaviour
for people who care about some side of the cause (even if it comes at the
expense of HN as a forum): the victory condition for any belief is to be so
universally accepted that its negation can not be expressed in polite company.
If you come into a HN thread believing X and then see that every post stating
X got downvoted into oblivion, maybe you will think twice before mentioning
that you believe X next time you are considering to do so in any setting,
real-life or online, that you have a persistent identity of any value in. The
next undecided person in _that_ setting might never hear the case for X and
come to believe not-X to be as uncontroversial as gravity, and before long it
will actually come to be.

~~~
madacoo
> this might be perfectly rational behaviour for people who care about some
> side of the cause

I dispute this is rational. Creating echo chambers polarises and intensifies
opposing viewpoints. The rational thing to do would be to engage in polite and
meaningful discussion with people with whom you disagree. This would diffuse
extreme opinions and allow people time to consider whether or not their
position is justified. Rather than reacting in a knee-jerk defensive manner
that serves to protect identity by strengthening belief, they are then given
space to examine beliefs in order to strengthen identity.

~~~
4bpp
Can you elaborate on why you dispute it is rational? I'm working with a
definition of "rational" that is more or less "the optimal way to attain your
goals", and assuming that the goals of Stallman's detractors imply that
everyone agrees that Stallman/people like him should be cancelled. My
argument, then, is that (1) upvote/downvote patterns on a forum like HN are a
useful tools to reduce the frequency of the case against Stallman's
cancellation being made in other settings than HN, (2) in the long run, the
case against the cancellation being made less frequently would result in more
people assuming the belief that the cancellation was good. (Of course, if this
were at all realistically attainable at this point, many in the pro-Stallman
camp would also want "cancel Stallman" to be downvoted so hard that people
would be afraid to argue for it in public.)

I don't really see how the rest of your post argues against that, or what your
argument for "the rational thing to do would be to engage in polite and
meaningful discussion(...)" is. Maybe we are using different definitions of
"rational" and/or different assumptions about people's goals, in which case it
would help if you could state yours.

~~~
madacoo
Let's start by assuming that a rational agent might choose as a goal the
complete cessation of a particular belief. In that case I'd argue that
downvoting patterns, as previously described, are not rational because, rather
than having the intended consequence of reducing the likelihood of the
expression of that belief, they would in fact simply cause that belief to
strengthen and then be expressed elsewhere in alternative echo chambers. In
order to establish which of our claims is correct we'd need to empirically
observe the propagation of beliefs as a result of downvoting patterns. That
would not be an easy thing to do.

However, I would also argue that choosing a goal like 'bring about the
complete cessation of a particular belief' would be irrational. Although I
accept that once I make that claim the conversation is directed towards very
shaky territory. The question of how to choose rational goals is probably
impossible to answer definitively.

But I will say that when I claimed that the rational thing to do would be to
engage with a disliked belief in a meaningful and polite manner, my assumption
was that a rational agent would choose to behave in a way that facilitates
growth for both the agent and those with which they engage. Of course, once
again, this choice of goal is by no means self-evidently rational.

~~~
4bpp
I suppose it all depends on whether you think persuasion or group membership
signalling is what primarily influences people's beliefs. I was under the
impression there was a wealth of studies suggesting that people basically do
not respond positively to logical argument but are easily swayed by what they
think everyone around them believes, but I completely failed to find any of
them (or studies to the contrary, on that matter), so barring someone
producing links where I failed, I suppose we can only recognise that we have
different beliefs about reality that we do not have easily
serialisable/communicable evidence for.

One issue I take with what you said, though, is the notion of a "rational
goal". I don't see how this would be defined in my understanding of the terms;
goals are axiomatic, (ir)rationality is a property of candidate actions in
pursuit of a particular goal. I still get the impression that we probably use
different definitions, and yours is much closer to something like
"rational"="conducive to intellectual growth". (So in my world a better
paperclip maximiser would be _more_ rational, and in yours a better paperclip
maximiser would be _less_ rational...?)

~~~
madacoo
It's definitely an interesting question as to whether goal-choice itself can
be a rational activity. Of course, it is necessary for a rational agent to
begin with axioms and from there make choices. It seems perfectly coherent to
me that we could, from those axioms, choose a further set of goals, each of
which can be attained following a course of actions, and so on.

And so I would contend that the goal 'cause the cessation of a particular
belief' is not axiomatic at all, but an instance of a goal that serves
something more fundamentally axiomatic. Like 'make the world more
comfortable'. Or 'make the world conform to my expectations'. Or something
like that.

From this model we could absolutely talk about choosing goals in a rational
manner that aids certain axioms. The question then would be: could the axioms
themselves be chosen in a rational manner? Probably not but then it doesn't
seem impossible to argue that some sets of axioms are better than others. It
would be nice, say, if the axioms guiding the behaviour of a rational agent,
didn't contradict each other.

~~~
GoblinSlayer
Goal choice is adaptation activity. For humans two approaches to adaptation
were identified: social and empiric. Monkeys use them too (fun fact: monkeys
are more likely to resort to empiric adaptation than humans).

------
DoreenMichele
_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.

------
dang
Threads from

2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9711346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9711346)

2014:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7435720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7435720)

2011:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2239288](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2239288)

------
cat_plus_plus
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.

~~~
ariabuckles
It wasn't just this incident. RMS alienated so many women from open source and
free software over the last 30 years, and we've lost all of those potential
contributions. He's been getting breaks for 30 years.

That he has also done some very good things isn't a good argument for
continuing to tolerate his harmful behaviour after he's been asked to fix it
for literally decades, and hasn't.

~~~
4bpp
Do you believe he has alienated more women from FOSS than he has inspired
people to contribute to it? Considering the frankly extremely low percentage
of female contributors, it seems that he would have had to personally
(considering that all of the creepy behaviours listed seem to be limited to
his meatspace circles) alienate multiple women for every one woman who did
wind up working on in free software, which seems unrealistic simply on the
basis that most people in FOSS never met Stallman. (On the same basis, I would
actually be inclined to believe that he has probably inspired more women
specifically than he has alienated, too.)

Note also that all of the anecdotes of actual bad behaviour that seem to come
up are from about two decades ago, and we seem to be supposed to conclude that
the pattern never stopped on the basis of that and a pathologically misquoted
and misrepresented email he sent on the Epstein/Minsky case. Considering that
the real email is at most slightly tone-deaf, the most likely model of reality
to me seems to be that he _has_ fixed that behaviour well over a decade ago,
but a number of activists had resolved to never let it go until they found
some way to completely destroy any status and reputation he has.

~~~
mav3rick
You are okay forgiving people as long as their "net impact" is positive? Is it
okay for someone to murder a person if they saved more than one life before ?

~~~
4bpp
In general, yes. Murder is a very peculiar case that is hardly suitable to be
the benchmark for building our intuitions about trading off harm in general:
human lives are not fungible, murder is not reversible, the victims do not
generally get a meaningful way of influencing how the murder impacts them
etc., all properties that do not apply in the case of being put off a pursuit
like FOSS. (Even then, we're sometimes okay accepting murder to save more
lives: e.g. the Allies' actions in WWII are considered a heroic even with
nearly a century of historical distance) Arguably, the progressive argument
for {affirmative action, inverted burden of proof in Title IX, ...} also
amounts to "accept some harm if the net impact is positive"; few people claim
that these policies will not result in some people being rejected from
positions they deserve or punished for crimes they did not commit.

Some countries are more explicit about this and actually constitutionally
single out matters of life and death as being prohibited from being traded off
against each other (e.g. Germany), i.e. the state is not allowed to play in
trolley problems. The corollary is that the state, and most everyone, finds it
okay to trade off other harms: you can for instance choose to build an airport
that will drive down the value of some people's homes and expose them to
considerable noise in order to give convenience and good business to a large
number of people. I think discouraging some women from participating in FOSS
is much closer in quality of harm to "your home is now worth half as much and
you have to put up with the noise of planes flying overhead everyday" than
"you die a painful and untimely death".

~~~
mav3rick
Also notice how it is almost always okay for "women" to be discouraged and
counted as collateral damage. The fact that you do that tells me a lot.

~~~
DarkWiiPlayer
> Also notice how it is almost always okay for "women" to be discouraged and
> counted as collateral damage.

Quote one person in this thread who said that it wouldn't be ok if it affected
men instead. Or just one person implying that.

You're assuming a lot here. If anything, I think it's likely less people would
care if a bunch of men were alienated, since there's already so many of them
in the field in the first palce.

------
scarejunba
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.

~~~
quickthrower2
What I could never get my head around when reading about free software is how
can people, especially individuals or small companies make money making free
software. Sure you can sell it but then the buyer is free to sell it for half
the price.

One way is if the software is a marketing tool for selling something else.
Then people sharing or using it is good for marketing the other service.

Another way is if the product is useless to the customer base in source form
so they need to buy the compiled version, and aren’t technical enough to do it
themselves.

But in general making software to sell needs a propitery license if you want
to make money.

~~~
garmaine
Red Hat...

~~~
eesmith
Pretty much every other company which has tried that model has failed.

------
tomxor
> “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.

------
ghaff
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.

~~~
Avamander
To be fair, if free software can restrict it's redistribution in closed
devices, why not in cases where the use restricts user freedoms one step more
indirectly?

~~~
ghaff
Also to be fair, that was a pretty controversial clause in GPLv3 and ended up
getting largely de-fanged before the license was finalized. It’s not obvious
to me that _workable_ usage restrictions should automatically be off the table
however.

~~~
Avamander
The Tivoization clause is good in my opinion, however it is now clear that
OEMs would rather not implement a feature than not lock their boxes. In a way
it's a success, no GPLv3 software will violate your user rights .-.

------
kyancey
Every time I read stuff like this, I think it's the free software people who
miss the point of open source.

------
jokoon
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.

------
Myrmornis
> 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?

~~~
olalonde
> So the only difference is in distribution rights? So his sentence is
> misleading regarding the extent of the differences?

Yes, it's misleading. There's no practical difference between the two in terms
of licensing.

What this boils down to is that not all open source developers subscribe to
the free software philosophy (e.g. believe that proprietary software is evil).
Therefore, rms doesn't like the term.

~~~
Myrmornis
> There's no practical difference between the two in terms of licensing.

Isn't it the case that (a) there could be / are open source projects with
extremely restrictive licensing which totally prevents all distribution. I.e.
a "copyright": you can still read and run the software and modify it for
yourself, as long as you don't distribute it, and (b) such a project could
never be "free" sensu Stallman?

~~~
olalonde
No, licensing that prevents distribution would disqualify it as "open source"
software.

------
blobs
'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.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Precisely because of what RMS keeps saying - the thing is about software
freedom, not software price.

Software freedoms and Free Software came first. "Open Source" came later, as a
"free just as in beer" spin-off.

~~~
blobs
It's not that I don't understand it, it's just very confusing for anyone
hearing that for the first time. Is it freeware? No, it's like free speech not
free beer. Come on, we can do better.

~~~
diffeomorphism
Most languages other than English do better.

If English is not your native language "free speech" is also a confusing
phrase.

------
2rsf
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-free-
software-text/)

------
mindcrime
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.

------
moron4hire
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.

~~~
paulstovell
This. The biggest contributors to open source, and the most popular open
source project maintainers, are now the mega corporations, who’ve figured out
how to weaponise it (either to commoditise other competing software/services,
or as PR for hiring developers).

------
msiyer
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.

------
lbj
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.

~~~
Avamander
How does it value that time as nothing?

~~~
lbj
If you invent a great piece of software, you need to be paid for the time you
put into making it. If your only play is a license deal or such, open source
will kill your business. Or turn it into something that RMS agrees with. But
it wont be "your" business.

~~~
Avamander
But noone is forcing you to make software libre, with or without asking money
for it.

~~~
lbj
Thankfully no force. Its just his philosophy

~~~
orangeshark
You can sell your free software, RMS even encourages it. The reason a lot of
the software is gratis is to lower the barrier to use and spread the software.
This makes sense if you want to quickly spread an operating system composed of
free software. Unfortunately that has become the default for most free and
open source software, even for many proprietary software these days.

------
lostjohnny
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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences)

------
marknadal
RMS misses the point of Open Source.

------
jimmaswell
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.

~~~
adtac
Not bizarre in absolutely any way. The free software movement is a real thing
that lobbies for you and me. Unlike silicon valley products, GPL and its
siblings actually made the world a better place and to not recognise it is to
be ungrateful. Even if making all software free is a dystopia, it's a good
dystopia to strive towards.

~~~
jimmaswell
I could have gone my whole life without politically charged GPL utilities like
gcc but Uber and AirBnB have been very useful to me.

------
ngcc_hk
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.

------
rimliu
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.

------
jheriko
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'.

~~~
knocte
That's because you're seeing the results of the license from the perspective
of the developer, not the user.

~~~
millstone
For a user who is not a software developer, what is the practical difference
between GPL and MIT? Is there one?

~~~
diffeomorphism
> For a user who is not a software developer,

For a reader who is not a journalist, what is the value of free speech? Is
there one?

~~~
andrerm
The day a journalist loses free speech is the day a reader loses it too. So
the value is the same for both.

~~~
diffeomorphism
I am not sure I understand the point you are trying to make. Both losing it at
the same time does not say anything about the value?

Devil's advocate: The journalist loses his job and livelihood. I had nothing
to say anyways. Clearly to him it had much more value.

I obviously agree that free speech is valuable for everyone (and so is free
software), but how do you best explain why?

