

Free software is dead. Long live open source - e1ven
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10361785-16.html

======
ZeroGravitas
Seems entirely built around the straw man argument that Free Software doesn't
want to interoperate with standards created by proprietary companies.

I'm not sure you could be any more wrong about something, unless you were
actively trying to do so. Even then it would take effort and a certain twisted
kind of mad genius. Just seems to come naturally to Matt Asay though, he can
churn this nonsense out week after week.

~~~
bitdiddle
This article is not even wrong.

It must either be a slow news day or they are hurting for readers.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I think you'll be entertained to read through his archive, "not even wrong" is
a very apt description of most of it.

------
pingswept
I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on the phrase from Matt Asay's
piece where he quotes Jason Perlow as saying:

    
    
      "But some people ... will use only free and open source software
      for the sake of ideological reasons alone"
    

The part I'm curious about is the ending "for the sake of ideological reasons
alone." To me, "ideology" refers to the values that drive us-- the reasons we
do things. Certainly, Stallman is driven by ideology, but isn't Eric Raymond
as well? Aren't we all?

I understand that there are non-ideological reasons for things-- like you
started crying because you learned your dog had died. You're having an
immediate, emotional reaction; there's no rational thought involved. But I
don't understand the distinction between "pragmatism" and "ideology" in the
realm of rational thought, like choosing software licenses. In my experience,
when someone asks me to be "pragmatic," it is the same as someone asking me to
do something that seems like a bad idea.

They're usually requests like, "Let's just copy a little bit of this code off
Sourceforge and act like it's ours. They won't mind. Come on, be pragmatic."
Or maybe, "If you would release that code under the BSD license, we could use
it in our proprietary commercial applications. Come on, be pragmatic."

I'd love it if someone could give me a better way to think about the
difference between pragmatism and ideology, or help me understand why I
continually disagree with other people about this sort of thing. My best guess
is that people who ask me to be "pragmatic" are just full of crap, or at least
some of them are, but I'm also open to the possibility that I'm just
misunderstanding the world.

------
camccann
Okay, so holding to uncompromising moral principles isn't particularly
compatible with real-world success. This is neither new nor limited to Free
Software; you either compromise in order to get along, or you retreat with
like-minded folks and live your own way (cf. Amish communities, hippie
communes, &c.)

Not everyone agrees with Stallman's ethical standards, and it's not even hard
to argue that strategic compromises could better achieve the long-term goals
of the FSF (in fact, they've been known to make exactly those sorts of
compromises).

But it really bothers me when people criticize Stallman for being out of
touch, or imply that it's "hatred of Microsoft" or whatever motivating him,
while sometimes seeming to promote compromise as a virtue in and of itself.
Are these people willfully ignoring the explicit philosophical/ethical
framework behind the FSF? Are they opposed to the ethical stance but unwilling
to say so directly? Is it inconceivable to them that someone could actually
dedicate their lives to a moral cause?

I suppose the obvious cynical answer is "they're trolling GNU/Fanboys in order
to rack up more website hits", but I try not to assume acting in bad faith as
my first explanation.

~~~
loup-vaillant
> …or imply that it's "hatred of Microsoft"…

Especially when you know that Stallman explicitely stated that Microsoft isn't
the enemy, proprietary software is.

------
apinstein
The article is right - demand freedom from _free_!

I've been working with open-source software for 15 years. Very early on it was
clear to me that GPL is not very compatible with commercial enterprises, for
exactly the reasons specified in the article.

It is a waste of time having to evaluate or code around the ability to
use/ship GPL software with your own commercial stack. _A waste of time_.

OTOH, all my MIT/BSD code happily works perfectly without a thought or worry
about legal ramifications. MYSQL is for me the canonical example of the crap
that goes on with GPL software.

 _All_ of the open-source software I produce is MIT/BSD style.

I don't have any problem with FSF wanting there to be tons of GPL software.
It's just not useful for me. There are clearly some social goods from GPL
software -- knowing it has to be virally free is useful to that stack of
software. It just doesn't play nice enough with non-FREE software to be very
useful to commercial interests.

~~~
pingswept
Your response is interesting to me. I agree with almost everything you wrote,
but all of the open-source software I produce is GPL'd.

I think the difference is that you want your software to be useful to
commercial interests, while I don't. I've gotten a lot of benefit from what
you call the GPL "stack of software," and I'd rather advance that than the
commercial stack that I (mostly) can't afford to use.

------
chanux
_To go mainstream, free software needed to become open source._

Anything Free software is Open source (But not vice versa).

Am I wrong?

~~~
gizmo
You're not wrong.

What the author means is that software maintainers need to embrace compromise
instead of Stallmanesque freedom. The first he calls open source, the second
Free.

------
wingo
Leech is the new black.

