
The fundamentalist FOSS mentality - kevkav
https://blog.hiri.com/the-fundamentalist-foss-mentality-c70a953f2821
======
maeln
The complains about FOSS fundamentalists coming from proprietary software dev'
(which I am) always seems a bit hypocritical to me.

The reason is, you probably use a lot of FOSS software that were made possible
only because a lot of people dedicated time and effort to it. Your servers
probably run Linux, if not, the services that you use everyday probably do.
Your compiler/language is probably FOSS too, if not, the software that was
used to make it was probably. Your OS probably contain some FOSS software or
was made using some. Even this blog post was only possible because of free
software (medium rely on NGinx, NodeJS, Redis, ...).

Today, it is almost impossible to work without at some point relying on a free
software or using software that relies on free software. We wouldn't be were
we at right now if it was not for FOSS. Hell, a lot of us may not have ever
been developers if it was not for FOSS. I know I only learned programming
because of FOSS like Ruby, Linux, GCC, ...

So I understand that we don't live in a world where everything is simple and
where we can all live making free software. But criticizing the people who
made your job possible doesn't seem like a good thing.

~~~
dpower
I think I was pretty clear in the article - I absolutely support FOSS. The
point of the article was to debunk some of the perceived "evils" of
proprietary software. It's not a zero sum game - FOSS vs Proprietary. Rather
they can support each other.

~~~
magissima
Obviously FOSS supports proprietary software, but I'm curious how you think
proprietary supports FOSS. Seems like a pretty one-sided relationship to me.

~~~
dpower
In this case, Linux would get wider adoption if it could attract some large
software vendors. Good for everyone.

~~~
erikbye
Linux has large software vendors.

------
AnIdiotOnTheNet
There's another problem with the "make money by offering support" argument: it
incentivizes creating software that requires support, usually via added
complexity. Similarly the customization argument: it incentivizes creating
inflexible software.

I'm not sure there is a monetization strategy that actually aligns with what
should be the goals of FLOSS.

~~~
nwah1
Models I know of are open-core, dual-licensing, paid support, selling
developer tools, and providing hosted cloud service offerings.

~~~
beefhash
Open core can go wrong if you're not coupling the valuable functionality
tightly enough to the open core, though. This seems to be happening with
BitWarden, where at least two free third party implementations of the password
storage backend exist[1,2].

[1] [https://github.com/jcs/rubywarden](https://github.com/jcs/rubywarden)

[2] [https://github.com/Odysseus16/bitwarden-
go](https://github.com/Odysseus16/bitwarden-go)

------
taffronaut
I assume that this is the "offending" thread on Reddit
[https://www.reddit.com/r/promos/comments/56ymfc/hey_linux_pe...](https://www.reddit.com/r/promos/comments/56ymfc/hey_linux_peeps_my_name_is_dave_founder_of_hiri/)

Quotes: “This is going to be a very hard sell being a proprietary closed
source system to Linux users, many use Linux because they have bought into the
idea of open source. Good luck with it anyway” “If it were FOSS, I would have
downloaded it and compiled it 20 minutes ago.”

Is that it? The rest of the thread seems pretty mild and politely interested.
This was two years ago and I think I'd be over it by now.

~~~
phkahler
>> This was two years ago and I think I'd be over it by now.

The more I think about it, this was written for marketing purposes. He doesn't
really make a point. It just draws more attention to the product.

~~~
whitehouse3
I tend to agree. There is suddenly a flash, 50% off sale on the hiri website
that wasn't there earlier this morning before this link hit the HN front page.

~~~
dpower
There's no sudden flash sale. This has been there for about a year now.

------
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
The post essentially lacks any actual arguments addressing the position of the
other side and is based on a fallacy.

The position of Stallmann is "the long-term societal costs of using
proprietary software outweigh the short-term benefits in most cases". "Using
proprietary software has short term benefits" simply does not address that
position.

The fallacy is in equating fundamentalism and extremism and a strong
conviction.

Having a strong conviction that democracy is a better form of government than
dictatorship, and holding to that even tough democracy certainly has its costs
and disadvantages doesn't make you a fundamentalist. A fundamentalist is
someone who is unwilling to consider the evidence that their position is
wrong. Weighing long-term costs against short-term benefits does not make you
a fundamentalist.

Extremism on the other hand is a completely useless term. Being extreme simply
means that you are far away from the mainstream. People who work for free and
fair elections in China are extremists. The only reason why "Extreme opinions
are rarely correct" is kinda true is because the author is lucky to live in a
place where, generally speaking, extreme opinions that are a good idea do
become adopted into the mainstream sooner or later and thus are no longer
extreme. For one, that isn't true everywhere, and, maybe more importantly, you
don't ever get those good idea adopted into the mainstream if you reject them
"because they are extreme".

------
ruskerdax
Proprietary software which restricts its distribution and "unauthorized"
modification (virtually all of it) is the very essence of fundamentalism. It
relies on a rigid and literal interpretation of what constitutes property
(e.g. that the concept of "intellectual property" is coherent and non-
contradictory) and even goes so far as to use threats, ultimately backed by
violent force, to ensure compliance with this belief. To conclude this blog
post decrying the skepticism of proprietary software with "extreme opinions
are rarely correct" strikes me as particularly ironic and absurd.

FOSS is the antithesis of this fundamentalism, as it expressly rejects the use
of threats to intimidate others into not copying or modifying code. I'm sure
there are some people who make sweeping generalizations that may not apply to
all proprietary software, but being suspicious of an opposing viewpoint
doesn't make one a fundamentalist.

~~~
dpower
> ultimately backed by violent force, to ensure compliance with this belief

This is true of all laws. This is how society works. If you don't like it, in
a democracy you can campaign for change.

You seem to believe you have a fundamental right to copy someone else's works.
If the author of those works grants you permission (open source) - then fine.
You seem to suggest that people shouldn't profit from their work. I just don't
think FOSS software alone is tenable.

~~~
ruskerdax
> This is true of all laws. This is how society works. If you don't like it,
> in a democracy you can campaign for change.

I am well aware this is how laws enforced by governments work. It does not
necessarily follow that is how society works, or that it must be so. I'd
rather stay on topic than turn this into a criticism of democracy, however.

>You seem to believe you have a fundamental right to copy someone else's
works. If the author of those works grants you permission (open source) - then
fine.

On the contrary, you seem to believe you have a fundamental right to use
violent threats to intimidate me into not copying or modifying code.

>You seem to suggest that people shouldn't profit from their work.

I absolutely do not suggest that. There are ways one can profit from software
development (or other creative and technical endeavors) that don't involve
threatening people with violent force.

>I just don't think FOSS software alone is tenable.

I understand that. At least acknowledge that you are the fundamentalist here,
taking the approach that because you don't believe it is "tenable" for
software to be free, you think it is pragmatic and therefor acceptable to use
violent force to prevent others from copying or modifying code.

------
peterwwillis
These arguments are myopic. It doesn't matter if your source is open if people
give you money, right? So how to get people to give you money?

The first answer is "find a pain point and build a product". Note I said
_product_ , not _open source tool_.

The second part is selling it. That's pretty easy: is anyone else fixing this
pain? No? Then sell people the product. You can give away your source code,
but that's completely incidental.

The third part, _" Our competitors will fork and steal our business!"_, is
possible, but _extremely unlikely_ , unless you _suck_ at your product.
Incumbents don't get unseated without tremendous effort. The longer you're
around, the more people will trust you to do it right, and the better you'll
be at it, with more features and more customers. (I don't know of a single
case of this ever happening; it's usually just a completely new open source
product and they compete fairly)

The last part, _" How do I keep people from just building and using the code
for free?"_, completely depends on how difficult this is, and whether your
packaging and selling of the product provides additional value worth paying
for. The simplest way is to provide premium services that solve more pain
points and to provide this with their purchase. But you can also just make the
software so annoying to build, and cheap to purchase, that it makes more sense
to buy it.

~~~
vinceguidry
> The third part, "our competitors will fork and steal our business!", is
> possible, but extremely unlikely, unless you suck at your product.

I don't think you appreciate the danger here. Someone can sink a few tens of
thousands of dollars into cloning a codebase, then make it to market in a bare
fraction of the time it took you to get there.

When you say "incumbents don't get unseated without tremendous effort," you're
referring to big incumbents like Amazon or Google, or CVS or Home Depot. Sure,
at that scale it's impossible to ramp up that quickly.

But for small outfits struggling to survive, handing the jackals everything
they need to compete with you is flat-out stupid. The barest vestige of a
moat, something as small as locking your doors, can be enough to get the
jackals to pick easier targets.

Having to manage the creation of a software product is an order of magnitude
harder than just cloning it and differentiating it from there.

~~~
peterwwillis
You can claim a lot of things that don't happen are dangerous. Skating on ice
is dangerous, because someone could bring out a flamethrower or napalm. Flying
on a plane is dangerous, because someone could fire a shoulder-mounted rocket
at your plane. Eating food with a fork is dangerous, because someone could
come up behind you and slap the fork into your throat. All of these things are
dangerous possibilities that do not happen.

AFAIK, small startups do not get unseated by other small startups that poach
their technology in order to ruin their competitor. Besides being quite
unethical, it's very bad PR. Not to mention, someone else would have to be in
the same position, ready to take the same risks, on the same business model,
with the same technology, at the same time.

Risky things happen. But so far, I am unaware of this particular risky thing
ever happening. I would love to hear if it has happened before.

(I will add the caveat that if anyone were to do this, it would be China)

~~~
vinceguidry
The HN crowd tends to stay outside of these kinds of business circles, but I
have a friend who doesn't, and he would ping me from time to time about
"cloning a site and building a business around it." It took me awhile to
understand the mentality. But "Uber for X" is very much a thing. We just don't
pay attention to them because those companies never reach Uber growth. But you
don't get to be Uber by just acquiescing to competition. It's not just about
execution, you can't just take the high road, Uber's taken a lot of low roads
to get where they're at.

It's basically like the kudzu that grows ubiquitously across the SE United
States. Find a tree, climb it, then steal all its sunlight. Look at an
existing business, find out what makes it tick, then clone its business model
and go after its customers using the same marketing channels its using.

I don't think you'd have to read many business books to find an account of
this happening, albeit with non-software products. It works because customers
simply don't have the bandwidth to be loyal or to thoroughly research
everybody they do business with.

~~~
tokai
>I don't think you'd have to read many business books to find an account of
this happening, albeit with non-software products.

So it's a general problem with businesses and not a valid argument against
FOSS alone then. That being said I don't see "uber for x" companies to be a
danger for legit businesses. To me it seems more of a way to milk investors,
and not a viable way to steal markets.

Most systems have a potential for agents to act badly, but it is my lay
understanding that game theory have shown cooperative strategies to win out.

~~~
chii
If it happens with businesses so often, why make it easier for them by
providing the source?

~~~
yellowapple
Because the source code is really not the important part of that equation. A
competitor with a slick marketing strategy will steal your business no matter
what.

Meanwhile, if you do release your software as FOSS, then you at the very least
get a marketing channel (the FOSS community) that's 1) cheap to acquire (any
"this week in FOSS" blog or software repo or whatever will jump on spreading
it around specifically because it's FOSS) and 2) is on average savvy enough to
know that you're the actual encumbent and your competitor is a fraud. Assuming
your product is actually good, they'll be inclined to support it and possibly
even buy it.

If this is scary to do with your core product, then at least start with the
FOSS dependencies of that core product. See also: Valve being one of the "good
guys" in the Linux-on-the-desktop movement; their core product (Steam) is
closed-source DRM (the literal antithesis of free software), but their free
software contributions (especially around Mesa and Wine/Proton/DXVK) more than
offset the "evil" of their core product, and so Linux users (myself included)
have no qualms throwing money their way.

------
aethertron
Here's another old argument from Stallman against using nonfree software, not
addressed in the blog post:

[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-
free.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.en.html)

> As a computer user today, you may find yourself using a proprietary program.
> If your friend asks to make a copy, it would be wrong to refuse. Cooperation
> is more important than copyright. But underground, closet cooperation does
> not make for a good society. A person should aspire to live an upright life
> openly with pride, and this means saying no to proprietary software.

I don't agree that refusing to copy the program would be wrong. "Cooperation
is more important than copyright" is a nice slogan. But copyright IS a form of
cooperation. In the situation described, you have to choose between
cooperating with your friend and cooperating with the software vendor.
Stallman is right to point out that it puts one in an ethical bind, and a way
to avoid that is to avoid proprietary software. He argues (elsewhere) that the
act of offering proprietary software is really bad, because it erodes
society's most precious resource, goodwill.

As for me, I have a fondness for the FOSS subculture, and a preference for
free software, _ceteris paribus_. I use a mixture of free and nonfree software
because I have other more pressing concerns, like choosing the best
technological choice for the job, and ease of use, and making money.

~~~
ruskerdax
Copyright is not a form of cooperation. It is a threat. If you copy something
without permission, you risk retaliation that is, ultimately, backed by
violent force. It is hardly honest to call something "cooperation" under these
circumstances.

~~~
type0
Proprietary software can be downright dangerous if you tightly integrate it in
your work and the vendor suddenly goes away or shuts down the software. But
this has nothing to do with copyright, Software Freedom Conservancy defends
GPL for the copyright holders that they represent.

The biggest issue with proprietary software is the unbalanced relationship
with the vendor that it implies.

------
bjpbakker
IMO there's nothing "fundamentalist" about rejecting a _particular_ piece of
proprietary software.

When trying to sell a niche product, r/linux might not be the best place to
ask. I'm wondering if the author would have had the same response when someone
on a windows or mac subreddit did not want to use their software.

Instead try to sell to people who you solve a particular problem for.

~~~
mherrmann
Imho it is fundamentalist if the only reason for the rejection is that it's
proprietary. Don't know if that was the author's exact experience. But it has
been mine. And it's not just dogmatic and stupid in a similar way as religious
fanaticism, it's harmful for the entire ecosystem.

~~~
bjpbakker
> it is fundamentalist if the only reason for the rejection is that it's
> proprietary

Personally I don't use software that I cannot review myself for tasks that are
important to me. That includes reading email. Hence, the reason for rejection
is that it's not open source. I don't see how this makes me a horrible
fundamentalist, but maybe you care to enlighten me :)

> it's harmful for the entire ecosystem

I also completely fail to see how me personally want to review source code is
harmful to the "entire ecosystem" (I assume you refer to the FOSS ecosystem?)

~~~
mherrmann
You are, obviously, free to choose the software you use. What you install on
your computer is, again of course, completely up to you.

What I take issue with are people who jump into any discussion of proprietary
software and downvote / criticize with "proprietary" being the only point. A
fair criticism should take the form "Cons: Not open source", "Pros: ...". But
it never does. It's always just "Nobody needs this proprietary crap". That is
what I consider actively harmful, because it suppresses options that may
actually be useful, if not for you then maybe for other people. If you don't
like it, why not just let it be? I don't like JavaScript. I don't go around
forums and shout "It's a horrible language!" where ever I see it mentioned.

------
liotier
Ignore the naysayers. I loathe having to trust proprietary software for
anything critical or anything I want control over, but there are things for
which proprietary software got my money... So focus on your market segment -
elsewhere, as all producers know, there will always be a chorus of negativity
that you are better off ignoring.

~~~
kevkav
Interesting. Do you mind if I ask what software (or category) have you bought
if you don't trust proprietary software?

~~~
throwaway8879
For me, I'll use the best tool for the job, whether it's FOSS or not. If
someone built a great FOSS DAW, then I would definitely switch away from
Ableton, Reaper, Logic etc. Until then, I'll use whatever gets the job done in
the best way possible. It isn't necessarily about trust.

~~~
klez
Out of curiosity, when was it the last time you checked on Free audio
production tools? I know I didn't check for a while and was pleasantly
surprised with the state of the current stack.

------
shmerl
_> If we do Open Source Hiri, there is nothing to stop someone from forking it
and selling it for less /offering it for free._

Tbsync developers have no problem with that.

 _> Also, you literally trust your life to proprietary software every time you
jump into a car or onto a plane._

Is that a good thing? People do it out of lack of choice, not because they
want to. Trusting closed software for communication purposes is especially bad
in the age of mass surveillance, so Hiri is actually not an example to be used
if you are so interested in pitching for closed software.

 _> There is ample evidence that companies competing using proprietary
knowledge is actually a pretty good model for more productivity /
technological progress. It’s why we have anti-trust laws._

Laws which aren't working for the most part because they have been diluted by
monopolists / oligopolists to completely toothless state.

 _> I believe the Linux community should embrace proprietary software with
open arms_

No, thanks. Linux doesn't need to become another macOS. There are cases when
proprietary software has no alternatives, but encouraging such situations
isn't something to aim for.

------
throw2016
It's hypocritical for people to continue to benefit from foss and complain
about 'fundamentalists'.

Without that level of commitment no one would have used Linux and all the
early immature and amateurish efforts, there are people here who know what a
horror some of the efforts were to use and the long journey to today. Would
any of the practical minded folks use any of that?

That part of the journey could only be made because of those motivated by
ideals. The practical 'middle ground' mindset would not have delivered the
rich open source world we know today.

If you don't subscribe to the ethics or values driving it it's perfectly ok,
but mature discussion needs to recognize that commitment is required to
achieve anything. Simply looking at the results and failing to appreciate what
it took to get here is a recipe for failure in any endeavour.

~~~
type0
This seem to be the case, the author don't understand that FOSS is usually
built by the communities of people that share the same fundamental values (he
can call them fundamentalists for all he wants) but it doesn't make his
arguments correct. When he complains that FOSS community doesn't embrace the
proprietary software - how exactly does he imagine this to be done, no one
dictates what software we should use so this discussion is completely
nonsensical. This whole idea is like someone would go to the vegan party,
bringing meat there and then complain that no one wanted to eat it. Just this
unwarranted complaining is enough to persuade many people that could have
bought his software to stay away.

~~~
dpower
I make an important distinction in the article. The FOSS community is not one
'type' of person. There are plenty in the FOSS community who use proprietary
software. I have yet to hear a compelling argument on this thread for using
FOSS software _exclusively_.

------
TheOtherHobbes
The bigger problem with FOSS is that FOSS isn't actually user-editable at all.
It's developer-editable - which is not even remotely close to being the same
thing, except for that tiny subset of projects where end-users are developers.

It's basically open blueprints, not open systems - with predictable results.

There's never been a truly open system, although Hypercard, Excel, VBS, and
Smalltalk have all tried (and failed) to edge into that space in their
different ways.

FOSS has certainly never shown the slightest interest in developing an open
system.

It has always been more of a charter for tinkering than a glorious liberation
for end-users frustrated with bugs, poor UI choices, and all the other things
that end-users hate.

~~~
type0
> It's developer-editable - which is not even remotely close to being the same
> thing, except for that tiny subset of projects where end-users are
> developers.

There are plenty of FOSS software where one could do meaningful changes that
improve your user experience without being a developer. This includes
customizing the theme for your desktop, translating the software into another
language etc

What do you even mean by open system?

There are plenty of regular (non-dev) people that propose great ideas for
changes to FOSS programs that later get implemented, you don't get this kind
of interactions with your users with proprietary sw because that your
"intellectual property" and who the hell are you to dictate how to do things
with my property attitude (which is, if not implied then anticipated by most
users).

------
throwaway8879
>I believe the Linux community should embrace proprietary software with open
arms. It would enable many more users to adopt Linux as their daily driver.
Depending on your source, Linux accounts for somewhere between 0.5–3% of
desktop users. It’s simply not having the impact it could. If you are
passionate about Linux/Open Source software, it’s time to think of the
ecosystem as a whole and embrace proprietary software.

You sell proprietary software, which is a perfectly fine and decent way to
make a living. Why are you defending yourself and exactly what against? It's
perfectly alright to make a living the way you see fit.

However, I'd rather not have the Linux community "embrace proprietary software
with open arms", thank you very much.

~~~
dpower
>However, I'd rather not have the Linux community "embrace proprietary
software with open arms", thank you very much.

Why? What possible harm could it do?

>Why are you defending yourself and exactly what against? I didn't write the
article as a defence. I wrote it as food for thought. I would like to see
Linux usage increase. I believe those that reject proprietary software
outright are preventing this from happening. A vocal minority give the
impression that proprietary software is not welcome. This has not been our
experience.

------
rubatuga
What is the point of attacking such a minority? If the author claims it is a
group of people so close to the "horizontal line", then why feel the need to
negate their arguments? If the author is the one saying that strong opinions
are rarely correct, why would he mention a different strong opinion that Linux
users should embrace proprietary software with open arms? It seems as if the
author never realized the true struggles that open source or FOSS (not the
same thing, I know) movements had in the early 2000s, with corporations such
as Microsoft being outright at war with them. The author only uses the example
of his small inconsequential startup.

~~~
watwut
1.) Refuting arguments is not an attack. The article does not read like
attack. It is civil and non inflammatory and non insulting.

2.) Those people vocally disagreed with his previous article, him following up
defending amd explaining his stance is how discussion work.

3.) Why not?

4.) Why do you want him to be silent and that group to hAve monopoly on
discourse?

~~~
AsyncAwait
I saw the Reddit thread and couldn't find any particularly 'fundamentalist'
views in it, not to say that a fundamentalist belief in user freedom is wrong.

~~~
dpower
Author here. It's not just one thread. And not just Reddit.

------
mrspeaker
I didn't read the other post that was controversial, so I'm only seeing this
as a self-contained piece: but what is the author saying? Is it just a laundry
list of things about open source? What is it arguing? Is it new, or just
someone thinking about FOSS for the first time? I can't see how any of the
things mentioned support the conclusion "the Linux community should embrace
proprietary software with open arms".

Maybe it makes more sense in relation to the other post. If so, I think the
essence of it should be worked into this post to give it some context.

------
enriquto
I also believe that proprietary software is morally wrong. I do not care if it
has better performance or features; it is just unacceptable on principle.

If I'm a fundamentalist for this belief, so be it.

~~~
Topolomancer
Well, using the term _morally wrong_ seems to paint you into a certain corner.
I am curious: where do morals come into play here? Why is a written piece of
software so much different than, say, a chair that was built by a carpenter.
Would said carpenter be morally wrong as well if he did not want to show you
how to build the chair? I am _not_ trying to start an argument here---I am
honestly curious about your perspective!

~~~
enriquto
> where do morals come into play here?

I want to be able to check whether the software does anything harmful for me,
and to be able to fix it and adapt it to my needs. Proprietary software
effectively curtails the possibility of doing that.

Say I am allergic to nuts. Fortunately, when I buy some processed food I can
check easily whether it has nuts or not. Now imagine living in a world where
food makers sneakily put nuts in their products, in order to "enhance the user
experience". And not only that, but they took great efforts to hide this
information from the consumers. After all, most people are not allergic, so no
big deal here. I would say that this is immoral.

~~~
dpower
> Now imagine living in a world where food makers sneakily put nuts in their
> products

Sure, this would be morally wrong (and also illegal). But you are basically
saying that everyone is putting peanuts in their software, which is simply
false. Quite insulting to those of us that do work on proprietary software.

~~~
dTal
I don't see where they said "everyone". The fact that _anyone_ does that is
cause for concern.

It's great that you don't include malicious code in your proprietary software.
But why should you defend the right of others to do so? It's not really
"insulting" to note that this is a common occurrence.

As you note, it is illegal for food manufacturers to put anything secret in
food, let alone secret and harmful. Why tolerate it in software?

~~~
pdonis
_> As you note, it is illegal for food manufacturers to put anything secret in
food, let alone secret and harmful. Why tolerate it in software?_

We don't enforce laws against food manufacturers putting secret ingredients in
food by opening up food production processes so that any member of the public
can walk into the factory and watch them at work. A major reason for that is
that the FDA is bound by law to respect trade secrets, so it can't just make
public every detail of the food production processes it inspects; all it can
say is whether or not they are safe in the FDA's judgment.

If we wanted to make laws against putting secret ingredients in software, the
enforcement mechanism analogous to the one we use for food safety laws would
be to create a huge government agency that inspected software source code. It
wouldn't be to open up the source code to anyone who wants to see it.

~~~
dTal
We do require food manufacturers to 'open up' their production processes by
printing every single ingredient on the packaging, plus a comprehensive review
of the effects of the food on the body in the form of nutrition facts,
caffeine content, alcohol content and allergen content among other things.
Quite what the equivalent procedure for software would be is left as an
exercise for the reader, but it's not as simple as 'government says so'.

The trouble is that the effects of harmful software are much less obvious than
harmful food.

~~~
pdonis
Yes, both of these are fair points. The second one, in particular, seems like
an important difference between the two.

------
dpower
I'm the author of this particular blog post. Curious to see how this is
received by the tech community.

~~~
simion314
FOSS is something I aspire too, I still use some proprietary software but as I
dream at a Star Trek world similar I dream that in future I would work only on
FOSS.

If there is a choice use FOSS app A or proprietary app B I will use A if it
does what I need, as a developer I adapted the open source apps to my needs
where with proprietary apps I could never done it.

~~~
dpower
The question is, will you choose FOSS even if it is a poorer choice?

~~~
seba_dos1
Most of the time, yes. Of course it's nuanced, so it can only be evaluated on
case-by-case matter, but if the FLOSS choice is "good enough", there's no need
for me to look for anything else, even if it might be somewhat "better
choice". Losing freedoms is way more painful than using second best software
for the task.

------
yellowapple
"Secrecy is not necessarily a bad thing provided a proprietary software
vendor’s incentives are aligned with your own objectives."

That's the point: if you're being secretive, then your end users are denied
the ability - without undue effort - to verify for themselves that you or your
software are acting in their best interests or "aligned with [their] own
objectives".

Transparency is a dependency of trust. No ifs ands or buts. If you can't be
transparent because "boo hoo we can't make any money" then I can't trust you,
and no reasonable person should.

The tired excuse that "but but but the black hats will see our code and hack
us" is just that: a tired excuse along the same lines as "security by
obscurity". The black hats will find holes in your software _anyway_ , because
they're motivated to do so (whether because it's how they put food on the
table or because they find it a fun challenge). The least you can do is make
it as easy as possible for the white hats to spot those zero-days first.

None of the arguments in this article are groundbreaking or compelling.
They're the same tired bullshit excuses closed-source devs always try to feed
their users for why said users should be fine with "don't worry, just trust
us, we pinky-promise we're not selling your data to advertising networks
(wink!)". Maybe you are, maybe you're not. Maybe you aren't _yet_ but might in
the future. No way to know for sure without full-blown reverse engineering
every single build.

And note that none of this has to do with software _freedom_. Yes, most
transparent software happens to be free software, but you can be transparent
and proprietary. From a trustworthiness perspective, I don't care if there's a
thousand-page Apple-style EULA in the source tree; I just want access to the
source tree. Conflating transparency and freedom is a tell-tale sign of
strawmanning here.

------
keiferski
I’m not a developer and I don’t have a strong opinion on open-source software
either way, but I’ve always wondered: does the fact that developers and other
technical people have (comparatively) excellent job security affect their
attitude toward free labor and products? If developers had a job outlook
similar to say, musicians, would open-source be as widely-used and praised as
it is now?

Surely some academic economic work has been done on a situation like this?

~~~
throwaway4799
Free labor is distinct from free software and it is misleading to conflate the
two. Plenty of people are paid to work on free software, and I'm not talking
about Red Hat or SUSE either. See: 90% of the Linux kernel contributors.

As for musicians, plenty of them share their music (or flps, or whatever) all
the time. Soundcloud, bandcamp, jamendo, magnatune, soulseek... the list goes
on.

~~~
keiferski
1\. Right, but I guess I was talking more about the ecosystem itself. If there
were no jobs paying people to work on open-source software, would there be as
much work done on free software in general?

2\. True, but charging money for your music doesn’t get nearly the same
negative reaction that paid software often gets.

~~~
seba_dos1
There's nothing wrong with paid software. I'm happy to pay as long as it's
free.

~~~
Multicomp
This is an interesting double entendre. Do you mean happy to pay as long as it
has a permissive/OSS license and comes with source code or that the purchase
price is zero, or both?

Genuinely not trying to be pedantic, just curious if you were being clever.

~~~
seba_dos1
Although I have just meant "free as in freedom" above, it's not uncommon for
me to pay non-zero amount for FLOSS with purchase price of zero as well.

------
xte
Well, my own personal response is that "FOSS fundamentalist" are as opposite
free people that do not want _actual_ society model but another and "people
who describe them as fundamentalist" are simply people that can't think a
different society or anything as society scale instead of their own company
scale.

It's not an offense but a simple reasoned scheme: did you know that at the
start of IT golden age software was open? In the USA, not in the URSS. Did you
know that in the golden age of USA "rich people" arrive even at 90% of income
taxes and they are still happy?

I do not talk about centuries in the past or restricted communities.

My own personal truth is that you are right many in a FOSS world will be dead.
Simply because they do not really produce anything sensible. FOSS world work
on innovation, without innovation business die. Today we have near-zero
innovation because we can't have anything really new in a managerial-drive
world. But again this is a system that work well in the short term, crash
miserably in the medium/long term.

------
mherrmann
I had the same experience numerous times. It's great OP is standing up to
this.

When I'm attacked for writing non-free software, I now respond by linking to
[https://fman.io/blog/dear-comrade/](https://fman.io/blog/dear-comrade/).

~~~
rhn_mk1
The link is completely irrelevant to the topic. The topic is libre software
versus proprietary. The link defends paid software against gratis, or at least
misleadingly conflates both aspects.

~~~
mherrmann
You did read the section "Maybe you also dislike the fact that my project is
not open source" right?

~~~
rhn_mk1
Yes, it's a small part that provides "I think I can't make it" as the only
argument. That doesn't really bring anything into the discussion.

~~~
AsyncAwait
That's another of these developers who benefited greatly from FLOSS, yet write
condescending posts. Ironically, the author of fman makes use of Qt, which is
a great example of how to make a business and still have a copyleft licensed
codebase.

~~~
mherrmann
I write to defend myself when I dare (gosh!) to write proprietary software.

~~~
AsyncAwait
My problem isn't with you writing proprietary software, (I'd prefer if it
wasn't proprietary, but do you as you wish). My problem is with you people who
benefit daily from FLOSS to then act as if the FLOSS people are just crazy
hippie, commie lunatics and how you couldn't possibly be FLOSS without also
putting food on the table and how other people are apparently not (gosh!)
allowed to advocate for not using proprietary software, or how is wrong for
them to do so and other such garbage.

~~~
mherrmann
I don't care about FLOSS people. Actually, I'm grateful to them and I also
have my own set of FLOSS libraries [1], because I feel we as a dev community
should work together and not have to reinvent the wheel all the time. What I
take issue with is being criticized for writing proprietary software. It
happens somewhat regularly. And the silencing that takes place is simply
unacceptable.

1: [https://github.com/mherrmann](https://github.com/mherrmann)

~~~
AsyncAwait
People are free to say they won't buy your software because it is not free,
(as in freedom). Also, there are important differences between merely "open-
source" and free software, so am glad to see that fbs is indeed copyleft and
applaud you for that. You seem to however be more on the open-source side of
things, despite the great choice for a license of fbs.

One thing to understand, is that the free software movement strives for a bit
more than open-source. It strives for trustworthy, ethical software. Software
that does not spy and only does precisely what the user knows about and can be
adopted to work according to one's needs. Copyleft is the best means we have
of achieving that.

What I think you're also missing is how hard what we have even now was to win.
You're grown up in a world where FLOSS was already a thing and fairly popular,
but it is precisely because of the 'fanatics' that it is so and we're still
far from an ideal place. If they were so lax as you wish them to be, you may
not have all the things you take for granted today, because it is radicals who
change the status quo.

You will be asked why fman is proprietary from time to time, because you
market to people that have a lot of principled people on this issue in their
ranks. You're free to ignore them and they're also free to keep not buying
your proprietary product. That's how it works.

P.S. Just to let you know, I did subscribe to fman when it first showed up
here and even renewed my license to support a one man shop, despite me not
using the tool. Posts like the commie one however, carry with them a serios
lack of understanding of the goals and reasons behind the (need for) free
software movement.

Nonetheless, as I already said, I applaud you for taking the step to make some
of your work copyleft. I am personally strongly of the belief that if fman
itself was GPLed, you'd see an uptick it sales, not any downturn, because it
would generate excitement and make people like me write plugins for it. At
present, I don't want to do that due to it being non free.

~~~
mherrmann
> but it is precisely because of the 'fanatics' that it is so

People fought for the freedoms in our democracies with their lives, and
killing others. That doesn't mean we have to keep doing these things. I
understand that it was a fight to get here. But it's not like we will lose it
all again if an indie dev like me writes proprietary software.

> You will be asked why fman is proprietary from time to time

I'm not just "asked". I'm told it's shit for the mere fact that it's
proprietary.

> You're free to ignore them

They're not just ignoring me. They take time out of their day to actively hurt
my product by downvoting or commenting in the nice way I described above.

> if fman itself was GPLed, you'd see an uptick it sales, not any downturn

I talked to the author of a once very popular Mac app for developers. He open
sourced it under the GPL. Sales went down by 90% over night. So, while I am
with you and would love for fman to be open source, it simply is not viable.

~~~
icebraining
What's the name of the popular Mac app?

~~~
mherrmann
I can't say, sorry. The dev told me in private and I don't want to violate his
trust. Suffice it to say, people on HN usually know it.

------
zimbatm
> If we do Open Source Hiri, there is nothing to stop someone from forking it
> and selling it for less /offering it for free. We die. And I do worry about
> my bank balance.

The author is fearful of not making money if his code is open source. The rest
of the article seems like a justification-wrapper around this. I am not saying
that this an unjustified fear but that it doesn't seem to be tackled-on
directly. Is there any alternate reality where Hiri could be making money
while having their product open source?

It seems to work for Travis CI and Sentry where their product has an
infrastructure component attached to it.

------
erkIfShen
The "inconvenient truth" that the author subscribes to is, in fact, a plain
old neoliberal capitalist worldview. It is not an objective worldview, since
those don't exist, and it is focused on money and power. The author cannot
imagine doing anything for society without being compensated with cash, it
seems.

It sure would be an inconvenient truth for them if their blog and business and
business model and a significant fraction of their perks in life were
backboned by FLOSS.

The author's approach to security is deplorable but frustratingly common,
treating security as a feature, as optional, and as something that is too
expensive for most software. As a reminder, the author's product is an email
client.

To the author's proprietary-software mindset: Remember, in the long run, all
software is worthless. Someday, there will no longer be email. I have a box of
add-on cards with connectors which will never be used again; I think that most
folks do. We know that proprietary protocols fade away, that closed languages
wither and die, and that siloed knowledge is never cited.

To tackle the final argument directly: No, the purpose of software is to
compute. Stop being married to work; it's an ugly American meme and doesn't
have to be how we live.

Finally, here's a popular argument that the author chose not to talk about:
What if existing copyright law is unconstitutional? In particular, what if the
Constitution's copyright clause forbids copyrights which survive the death of
the creator; or what if works-for-hire are inherently disenfranchising to
artists? This would align just fine with Stallman's opinion that copyleft is
only necessary because copyright law exists; maybe a world where corporations
can't take code from their employees as easily would be a better world.

------
cybervegan
But Free Software is a reaction _against_ Proprietary Software... it exists
_because_ some people don't want to embrace PS.

Hey ho. You go your way and I'll go mine.

~~~
sbuk
> Hey ho. You go your way and I'll go mine.

That is the attitude that I can get behind, however neither side of this
argument is really prepared to do that. In my experience, FLOSS advocates do
appear to have a more fundamentalist all or nothing approach when espousing
their opinion online, often aggressively. Ideology is great, but it does lead
to book burning on occasion.

------
pretty_bubbles
I disagree with part of your argument. If being FOSS is important to you, by
all means, only use FOSS. In some situations it is critical. For example, all
of my devices become worthless once they stop being supported, unless they're
FOSS.

At the same time there are some FOSS fundamentalists that think using
proprietary software make you a bad person. They are wrong.

~~~
adrianmalacoda
> using proprietary software make you a bad person

We don't believe this. We argue that free software is important[0] because it
gives users control over their technology, and proprietary software is bad
because it denies users that control. We don't believe using proprietary
software (whether by choice or otherwise) makes you a bad person.

If anyone is actually making this argument I would say they are doing the free
software movement a disservice.

[0] [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-
impor...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-
important.html)

------
jpereira
Does anyone have instances of forking open-source software that supports a
business in order to undercut that business?

~~~
remy_
mariadb / mysql? matomo / piwik.pro? It seems mostly done by the original
developers however and not a new 3rd party.

~~~
Nasrudith
Generally it seems to happen in response to Darth Vader deals "pray we do not
change the terms further".

OS branches over technical direction disagreements are a closer thing but they
generally aren't businesses.

------
naringas
> Extreme opinions are rarely correct.

this is the only thing I agree with.

some things should never be kept propietary unless there are widely availabe
(FOSS) tools to reverse engineer them.

~~~
tokai
> Extreme opinions are rarely correct. That is definitely an opinion. If you
> look throughout history it is clearly evident that extreme opinions were
> often right (No men have a god given right to rule. Consciousness is
> material. Other people have a right over their body. Etc.) The "wise"
> centric position might sound nice, but it is often just a mix of conformity
> and a weak imagination.

~~~
Nasrudith
Yeah extreme opinions are large leaps whether their direction is right or
wrong. If they take a wrong direction much of the time it may be because most
opinions are wrong. There is a depressing tendency looking at history seeing
someone stumble upon something groundbreaking, looking at it and saying "Nah
that can't be right." and then promptly discarding it.

I think the late Justice Scalia had one such ironic moment with his dissent in
I believe Laurence vs Texas when he derided a decision as saying under that
logic it would lead to gay marriage.

------
tarboreus
The statistic of .3% of desktop users on Linux is miles off. It's somewhere
between 2% and 3%, or, by some measures, almost a third of the user base of
Mac OS. Admittedly quite small, but not nothing.

[https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-
share.asp...](https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx)

------
zzzcpan
> If we do Open Source Hiri, there is nothing to stop someone from forking it
> and selling it for less /offering it for free.

Your license can easily stop that in a way that still respects user freedom.
Even more than GPL does.

~~~
rhn_mk1
An Open Source license cannot limit for what purpose the software will be
used.

~~~
zeveb
That's because restricting the use of software is restriction of user freedom
…

~~~
zzzcpan
Most open source licenses don't respect user freedom at all and are promoted
precisely because they allow corporations to use such software to restrict
user freedom. And among those licenses that claim to respect user freedom none
actually respect it enough to prevent corporations from distributing such
software as user freedom restricting services. Even GPL was not merged with
AGPL because corporate interests outweigh respect for user freedom.

------
ptero
My 2c: the author has something to say and I mostly agree with many of the
things he is saying. However, his choice of labels (fundamentalist mentality /
reddit / FOSS defender / etc.) hurts intelligent discussion -- whoever is
disagreeing would be tempted to counterattack with a label ("copyright nazi",
etc.) rather than discuss the post on merits.

Maybe author hopes that choice of words would stimulate discussion, but I
think all it stimulates are flame wars reusing old slogans. So the content may
be interesting, but the form struggles to make it underwhelming.

------
throwaway4799
No one is entitled to a business model. If your userbase has a culture of
being (rightfully, in my opinion) defiant toward proprietary products, that's
for _you_ to remedy. If you can't make _any_ money from ancilliary uses of
your product (support, hosting, whatever) maybe you should question why you're
monetizing in the first place.

Free software is strictly more ethical than nonfree software. Any attempt at
arguing otherwise basically boils down to a rationalization of 'but I want to
make money', which is not a tenable ethical stance. I'm not saying it's wrong
_per se_ , but it doesn't inspire goodwill or good sentiments either. Trying
to deride people with a strong sense of ethics regarding software production
and use by comparing them to religious fanatics is misguided as best,
malicious at worst.

~~~
dpower
I'm certainly not trying to deride open source. For the record, we have plenty
of Linux users paying for the product (see previous article), but I simply
don't understand why some people won't buy the product because it's not open
source. I mean it's their choice - fine. But it's also our choice on whether
we open source or not. No need to abuse us for this choice. I am trying to
remedy the issue - I'm writing about it.

As for free software being more ethical, I'm just not sure what that means?
You think because someone is giving their time the motive is always altruistic
and therefore superior choice? I'm not trying to antagonise you. Just asking
the question. I don't think of it as a zero sum game. You can add to humanity
and get paid for it. I'm no libertarian, but if you add value, create jobs,
contribute to taxes...

~~~
throwaway4799
I don't think I was in any way abusing. I said that your attitude does not
inspire goodwill or good sentiments. You're trying to make money, like
everyone. That's fine, not everyone is a monster for not writing free
software, giving to charity, whatever. I just don't see why you should feel
entitled to make the money the way you're attempting to. Your userbase feels
strongly about some issues and these are the same people you're trying to
convince to give them money to you. Calling them fundamentalists will not help
or solve anything, and I can't emphatize with "If only more of my users agreed
with me so I could make more money".

