Free Software, Free Society 528
| Free Software, Free Society | |
| author | Richard Stallman |
| pages | 220 |
| publisher | GNU Press |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | timothy |
| ISBN | 18822114981 |
| summary | Philosophy and practicality don't have to clash; this book makes the case that software can be open, and why it should be. |
What's between the covers
Free Software, Free Society is divided into four sections:- One: The GNU Project and Free Software (10 chapters)
- Two: Copyright, Copyleft, and Patents (6 chapters)
- Three: Freedom, Society and Software (5 chapters)
- Four: The Licenses
The book starts off on a good note. Key to understanding nearly everything in the book is a basic understanding of what source code is. Since Stallman's usual audiences don't need to have this explained, Richard E. Buckman and book editor Joshua Gay provide a three-page introduction ("A Note on Software") which is as good and concise an explanation as I've ever seen of the meaning of "source code," "compiler," "assembler," "machine code" and "operating system." Without quibbling over details that space has made them gloss over, this section is a good mental boot camp for anyone reading the book with no programming knowledge at all.
This note is followed by a topic guide which walks a prospective reader through the contents of the book better than a table of contents can, pointing out what concepts are dealt with in the book's chapters, a sort of micro-index. (And in a book this brief, it helps make up for the lack of a more thorough index.)
Lawrence Lessig's introduction largely repeats what Lessig has said in the past about the openness of software. One paragraph in particular sums up one of my favorite analogies when it comes to Free software, and one which I think translates well to those familiar with other fields, like art and architecture:
"... Law firms have enough incentive to produce great briefs even though the stuff they build can be taken and copied by someone else. The lawyer is a craftsman; his or her product is public. Yet the crafting is not charity. Lawyers get paid; the public doesn't demand such work without price. Instead this economy flourishes, with later work added to the earlier."
Old hat, new hat.
Those familiar with Richard Stallman will no doubt recognize at least some of these essays, or at least their cores, because of the persistence with which Stallman has spread the word of the origins and underlying philosophies of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. The first chapters of the book may bore readers who have heard dozens of times the story of Stallman's experiences with the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS) in the MIT AI lab, the dissolution of the software-sharing society there, and how it directly led to his quest for a complete Free operating system. Stallman is an engaging writer, though, and I found myself enjoying it even though I have heard the story several times before.
The chapter in this section most likely to trouble those set in conventional thinking when it comes to software is Chapter 4, "Why Software Should Not Have Owners."
Despite the title, the book does not consist entirely of essays; it also includes a transcript of Stallman's speech at NYU in May of 2001, which shows how consistent Stallman's speaking is with his writing style. Some people have derided Stallman (and the FSF) as too academic, removed from the realities of normal computer users and the business world which right now implicitly favors non-Free software, so it's interesting to note the context of that speech -- it was a direct, welcome reaction to the prodding of Microsoft Vice President Craig Mundie's speech on the same campus earlier the same month, in which Mundie casually referred to the "viral aspect" of the GPL, and declared that Free software "puts at risk the continued vitality of the independent software sector."
There's also Stallman's short story "The Right to Read" and even (Chapter 10) the text and score of the Free Software Song. 'The Right to Read" may be the part of the book most appropriate for reprinting in tract form to leave around public libraries: this is a story, not quite hypothetical enough, about a future where every time a book is read, it must be unlocked with a password and authorized by those who hold the strings of copyright -- and sharing books is prohibited. Replace "books" with "e-books" and the story becomes less an allegory as a description of current reality.
Just as current are Chapters 12 ("Misinterpreting Copyright -- A Series of Errors") and 16 ("The Danger of Software Patents"). Stallman's arguments here, despite his protests that practicality is secondary to ethical interests, are eminently practical and should be read by everyone whose work touches either copyright or patents. And contrary to disparagement sometimes heaped on the Free software movement, he does not dismiss either of these in toto -- he simply points out forcefully ways in which these protections can be dangerously perverted.
Some of Free Software, Free Society's contents may strike readers (whatever their level of interest) as needlessly pedantic. I'm thinking here specifically of Chapter 21, "Words to Avoid," which lists 14 words and phrases Stallman discourages in the context of Free software as he defines it. On second glance, I think even this chapter is well suited to the book, since the reasoning presented for his objections to each word on this list (a paragraph or two apiece) will be most informative to people not already steeped in the lore and leanings of the Free Software movement. Some of these (I'll tease by saying that the entry for "content" is my favorite) squeeze in some humor as well.
Stallman's philosophy is what drives his attachment to Free software, but this book is not just a collection of harangues -- there's a great deal of practical advice as well.
Chapter 8, "Selling Free Software" is an essay found in earlier form on the GNU website, which in a few hundred words obliterates a persistent myth about Free software -- that it can't be sold or can't make its sellers a profit. Stallman emphasizes the differences that the GPL has on distribution terms, but lays out the terms clearly:
"Except for one special situation*, The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy."
Helpfully, that older chapter is preceded by one written earlier this year, "Releasing Free Software if You Work at a University." This is a particularly short chapter -- it takes up only two pages -- but the brevity is to Stallman's credit. I would like to see many more case studies beyond the single example presented (a GNU Ada compiler developed at NYU with Air Force funding, with a contract that specified its source code would be donated to the FSF) but these would probably be better in a book with a narrower scope. By not dwelling on unneeded specifics, Stallman has saved space to explain arguments and tactics which may be useful in persuading your school to endorse a Free software license. I also learned in this chapter that "The University of Texas has a policy that, by default, all software developed there is released as free software under the GNU General Public License." (Can anyone tell me more schools where this is true?)
The practical upshot of a philosophical book.
Free Software, Free Society is not a book for casual reading, and has no thrills, cliffhangers or suspense -- unless you apply the thoughts within to current, real situations, in which case you can probably find more excitement than you might care for. When Stallman wrote "The Right to Read," no one had yet been arrested for making eBooks accessible or copyable. This book is intentionally didactic and persuasive.Your library (local or school) should carry a copy of this book because it is distillation of ideas that are philosophically important but by no means abstract. And if the libraries available to you don't carry it, I suggest filling out a book request form -- which you may be able to do right from your computer. (Here are two online examples from Yale and New York City's branch libraries.) Likewise for (as appropriate) your school's computer science department, law school and business school. It would also make a nice gift to your Congressional representatives, since many of them seem to have forgotten that preserving a free society supposed to be their highest aim.
This is a book worth buying, reading, and passing on.
* That exception is when source code is not physically included with binaries; the source code must then be available upon request from the binaries' provider.
You can purchase Free Software, Free Society directly from the GNU Press site. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
cough (Score:3, Funny)
is that freee as in beeer, or freee as in--
ok, sorry, had to do it
Re:cough (Score:3, Informative)
Free Software may cost money, but you can use it however you choose. (At least, the copyright holder won't object.)
"Free as in beer" is usually contrasted with "Free as in speech", but that can be confusing. Especially with the recent changes in our legal system.
Re:cough (Score:2)
Where is (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where is (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Where is (Score:4, Informative)
No where. And it doesn't need to be. If the book was licensed like the GPL, then anyone who bought a copy could redistribute the text. But there is a separate libre license specifically designed to deal with documents, and so the GPL doesn't even apply.
And it makes sense that the restrictions put on books should differ from those placed on software. You cannot "compile" a book into an unreadable format and still make use of it, unless you have a correspondingly compiled software utility that descrambles the text.
unreadable format' (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure I can, it's called PGP.
Re:unreadable format' (Score:2)
In any case, it doesn't matter. For a book to be of use, it must be readable. This is different from programs, which can be used in their unreadable state. If the book is readable, it can be copied. A program can be copied too, but not in the same way. I can't take the sorting algorithm from an executable and use it for something else, unless I have the source code. But I can take any random paragraph from a book and insert it into another work.
This is just talking about practicality, not legality. The GPL seeks to make legality the same as practicality, and to promote both at the admonishment of the doctrine of copyright.
Downloading the book (Score:5, Informative)
You can check out the source from CVS [gnu.org]. Also, most of the essays are already on the GNU philosophy page [gnu.org], and the rest are being put up this week.
We do request that if you download the book rather than buy it, that you make a donation to the Free Software Foundation instead [fsf.org] to help offset the cost of producing and formatting the book for publication. Indeed, I am frankly afraid that our meager savannah resources will collapse from the slashdot effect.Sincerely,
Bradley M. Kuhn
Executive Director, Free Software Foundation
this is a good thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:this is a good thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Tolerance of intolerance (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe you're stretching the meaning of tolerance a little too far here. Tolerance is useful when we are describing the ability of individuals to get along without significantly interacting. It is a stepping stone from hatred to understanding; i.e., if you can't accept or sympathize with homosexuals, you should at least tolerate them since they don't do you any harm.
But RMS gets very angry at people who try to harm his ability to create software by closing off avenues of inquiry through abuse of the idea ownership system. They are harming him, and they are harming his ability to contribute to the software community.
If there were no relationship between what he gets angry about and his contributions to computing, you would be right that the issues are distinct. But they have everything to do with one another.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:this is a good thing... (Score:3, Interesting)
I -really- wish I had links to some of them (anyone? I think there was a recent debate at MIT that RMS went off the handle).
Basically, RMS's points have been heard, and change takes a long time. RMS isn't willing to wait for a long period of time, and isn't satisfied with how much has happened already, so I picture him as a stubborn zealot that will never truely be happy.
Sorry to sound harsh, or to bash RMS. His ideas are good, but the way he conveys it is not.
Re:this is a good thing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't forget, the greatest artists and scientists were ridiculed in their own times. Great thinkers and wonderful artists such as Galileo, van Gogh and loads like them were considered odd and thus were ridiculed merely because they were far ahead of their time. Now I'm not glorifying RMS here, but surely history thought us that people with odd ideas on how things work/look like should be listened to and not disregarded.
Re:this is a good thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right that society judges people differently in hindsight, but what you're hinting at is not necessarily true. ie RMS (or anyone with an idea) is a saint because he's a weirdo. More often than not, people who piss people off with their ideas have bad ideas.
RMS has probably taken the movement about as far as he can because his philosophy/demeanor is not acceptable to the next group that the Open Source movement needs to penetrate-- business leaders. RMS is/was convincing to the group of zealots that got the movement off the ground, but he's probably doing more harm that good now.
There's a reason we have Martin Luther King Day and not Malcolm X day.
Workers (Score:2)
I think RMS would gladly trade support in broad base of technology workers over support from their bosses. He's trying to change consciousness not change software vendors.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:this is a good thing... (Score:2)
I don't like your argument. By the same logic, Bill Gates, "whatever his faults, [...] has contributed significantly to the software community in general." But I'm not about to stop Billybashing, because his contributions don't excuse him from scrutiny and criticism.
Am I comparing RMS to Billy? No, of course not. I like RMS. What I am saying is that I acknowledge RMS's contributions, but I think he's also done some things that rightfully get him a little crap from the community.
And speaking of that, I'm not too keen on Edison, either. Read one of the books about Tesla and Edison, and you'll probably stop holding up Edison as an example of a genius.
Re:too much? (Score:2)
i've always wanted to walk up to and start a conversation with that guy (wow, we must shop at the same store), but I don't want to be rude and interrupt. sometimes i find myself going back to the produce section later just to see if i can get a word in edgewise, never any luck yet. let me know if you make it through, i've got a long list of questions i want to ask.
Contradiction (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost by definition, a dogmatist can't be reasonable, since dogma itself, as a tenet, is not subject to reason.
Re:Contradiction (Score:2)
Re:Contradiction (Score:2, Insightful)
The dogma of dogma? (Score:5, Informative)
That's a dogmatic definition of 'dogma.' The word has the same root as 'doctor' (whose medical meaning is quite recent - the sense of 'professor' is much older) and 'doctrine,' which originally referred to teacher and teaching. So a 'dogma' is generally a received teaching, but that does not at all mean (1) that there is no reason behind the teaching, or (2) that the student is not encouraged to reason about it. The same root is in the Greek word dokein one of whose meanings was 'think.' It also shows up as both 'orthodox' and 'paradox.' Also, 'document.'
Basically, a dogmatist is anyone who professes to have a consistent teaching. While famous examples include Philo of Larissa's elaboration on Plato's Academy 4 and the doctrines of the Councils of the Catholic Church, these do not nearly exhaust the senses of the word. Your definition of dogma as not subject to reason sounds like itself a bit of dogma - something you have been taught, but in this case by someone whose reasoning about it is based on perhaps a judgment about the Catholic Church's instances of dogma, rather than an open study of the history of the term.
Re:The dogma of dogma? (Score:2)
i was scanning through and thought i saw " elaboration on Police Academy 4"....
now, i can't stop laughing for some innane reason.
Re:Contradiction (Score:2)
At any rate, this is mostly a semantic argument, and gets further and further away from the actual question of whether RMS is "reasonable." When people say that he is unreasonable, we all (mostly) know what this means, though I think that it defies concise definition.
From what I've seen of him, he is mostly not reasonable. There is quite a bit of an egomaniac in him and he's often had trouble with figuring out what battles are worth fighting. His whole GNU/Linux naming rampage has been fairly bad for him politically and has alienated him from some of his most valuable supporters.
My opinion of him was finally gelled when I read the newsgroup conversations of the GNU/Lucid/X Emacs debacle. It at least showed that he had a very deep problem with working with other developers and even a bit of control-freakishness over the whole thing. A great deal of the problem was poor communication in both directions, but I felt that he had made a lot of the mistakes, and seemed reluctant to make an effort to meet the Lucid people halfway.
I still admire RMS, he's sort of the great gand-daddy of open source and he deserves a lot of credit for laying the foundations that allowed GNU and Linux to flourish. Even withhis faults, we wouldn't be where we are today without him.
Re:Contradiction (Score:2, Flamebait)
Somebody's going to exploit this... (Score:4, Interesting)
My colleagues tell me no, that's not true. But just yesterday we started looking into replacing our commercial database engine with MySQL. Lo and behold, for our commercial use, we have to pay for it.
That's fine, in itself. I think it's fine to pay people for work they did. But think about all the contributors to MySQL, who were doing it because it was "free" and "open" software. MySQL AB (the company who really does control MySQL) is going to make an awful lot of money from all that work. They wouldn't be backed by Venture Capital money if they weren't. But all those contributors shall see not a cent!
I don't mean to pick on MySQL, but I think it's an interesting example. Open source and "free" software is a disruptive technology, just as something like Shareware was when compared to the Freeware model of the early '90s.
But I think it's naive not to expect to see some people make an awful lot of money out of code that others contributed to free. I fear history will repeat itself.
Re:Somebody's going to exploit this... (Score:5, Interesting)
The people who believe most in the principles Free Software has to offer are the least likely to receive anything in return for their efforts (well, barring Richard Stallman himself, but even he is poorly compensated in comparison to Bill Gates or Bill Joy). If you're coding for the joy of coding, then it in and of itself is enough compensation, of course, but if Free Software developers were truly paid at the level at which they contribute to society their work would easily exceed everything Microsoft or other commercial developers have to offer.
Re:Somebody's going to exploit this... (Score:2, Insightful)
I know we're on
Re:Somebody's going to exploit this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I think that you picked a very poor example in that one. Red Hat realizes the value that core developers brought to Linux. A thousand or so of the major contributors -- who did it for love, not for any hope of future profit -- were given rights to buy RHAT stock at the IPO, making them all quite a boodle of cash if they were smart enough about it. Not only that, but Red Hat pays the salaries of people who used to just do linux development because they wanted to, but because Red Hat is able to make money off of it, they feed them as well.
Very rarely do the engineers and scientists and researchers grab the profits from their inventions. But businesses exist for profit, and that's how the world works: they make the money off of things invented by individuals.
Linux/open-source businesses in particular have been fairly conscious about remembering to reward those who worked to bring about that which they're profitting off of. Goodness knows, it's certainly in their best interests to do so.
Re:Somebody's going to exploit this... (Score:2, Interesting)
"As long as you never distribute (internally or externally) the MySQL Software in any way, you are free to use it for powering your application, irrespective of whether your application is under GPL or other OSI approved license or not. "
Now, if you're saying that you want to include MySQL in an application that you intend to distribute for commercial gain and not pass conpensation back down the line to MySQL AB then I say you are doing the very same thing that you are accusing them of doing - trying to profit from someone else's work.
To me their license makes perfect sense and is quite fair.
You're wroing about MySQL (Score:2)
MySQL is dually licensed under GPL and a commercial license. MySQL AB can do this since they are the creators of the code.
If you wish to use the software under the restrictions of the GPL, you are free to do so. But if you wish to do something not allowed by the GPL, then, and only then must you purchase the commercial license.
This is clearly spelled out in MySQL AB's licensing section:
Had they made MySQL LGPL or BSD licensed rather than GPL, then this restriction wouldn't exist.
You can do anything with MySQL that the GPL allows. But if you want to do something not allowed, you still can, but you must pay MySQL AB.
I don't see how you can find any fault with this.
Re:You're wroing about MySQL (Score:2)
Sure. I say it's good, for both cases. A company has the means to continue it's existence, while simultaneously benefitting the community. If the company ever decides to be a bastard and run off with the code, anyone else can take the GPL code and keep maintaining it.
Re:You're wroing about MySQL (Score:2)
Re:Somebody's going to exploit this... (Score:2)
Also, the people who run MySQL AB are the ones who developed the MySQL database. They're not running a company to get rich off someone else's code.
As for people who've contributed code, documentation or tools for MySQL, they are getting paid. They're getting a free database. If you consider the cost of purchasing some comparable alternatives, they're getting paid very well.
Re:Somebody's going to exploit this... (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think you understand. Those developers made the contribution out of the kindness of their hearts. Perhaps they found a bug during the course of developing for their own company, or perhaps they did it on their free time. But the important thing is that they gave of their talents with the expectation that they would receive nothing in return save a bit of personal satisfaction.
MySQL AB places no restrictions on the code, it is completely GPLed and open to everybody. Documentation is freely available from a multitude of sources. Not a single developer is being restricted from having his hard work available to the entire world.
But in addition to the free version, the creators of MySQL have offered a way for companies to purchase a license, and thus avoid several GPL issues. On top of that, they have also made the choice to stick out their shingle and offer support sevices for the product, which will probably make some good money as well.
But the important thing that you completely misunderstood was that they had complete freedom under the GPL to do this. And more importantly, so does everybody else. Hell, you could start your own company if you really feel like it.
Nobody is being taken advantage of, because everyone is given the same oppertunities to profit from the code.
Re:Somebody's going to exploit this... (Score:2)
That's not actually true -- it's under the GPL. Only for proprietary distribution do you have to get a non-GPL license.
Re:Somebody's going to exploit this... (Score:2)
Look a little bit harder next time. MySQL is available under the GPL, which does not distinguish between commercial and non-commercial use. From the MySQL web site [mysql.com]:
MySQL is available for free under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). Commercial licences are sold to users who prefer not to be restricted by the GPL terms.
Also, prebuilt binaries of the so-called "MySQL Classic" are only available under the commercial license, but if you can't be bothered to build it from source, you must not be very serious about using it.
The legal analogy (Score:4, Interesting)
Regarding the comparison of free code to the law, I think Stallman (and Timothy) might be disappointed to read this [yale.edu] at LawMeme. For those who don't want to follow the link:
Apparently, nothing is sacred. :-)
Re:The legal analogy (Score:2)
Clearly MW (which also represents the lead plaintiff in the Dynegy class-action suit) sees its complaints as up-front research done in order to bolster its position as representing the lead plaintiff, and is nervous that other firms cribbing its research will piggyback on its work. Clearly they're misusing copyright. (Well, they are lawyers.)
One would hope that such a misuse would be unnecessary. Ideally MW would be able to go the judge and say "Your Honor, look at all the complaints we've filed, and look at all the subsequent complaints other firms have filed, and how much of their complaints use our arguments." Whether such an argument works in practice, who's to say?
Re:The legal analogy (Score:2)
Patents expire while they still matter, unlike copyrights. Claritin goes out of patent next week. The "GIF patent" expires next spring. RSA encryption went out of patent last year.
Free As In Freedom (Score:2, Informative)
Interestingly enough, O'Reilly had a page devoted to the software that was used, and it sure wasn't open source (PageMaker or FrameMaker, IIRC),
The real quesiton is... (Score:5, Interesting)
obviously, since the book has physical attributes, i wouldn't believe or suggest that a physical book itself would be free... but i'm curious if he eats his own dog food.
tangental question...
how did it come about that Lessig's eBook was protected to the point of being unusable? Did not he write it? (/Yoda) And did he not have control over how its protections were to be set? I am a devotee of Lessig's ideas (not to the man himself), but this has always bothered and confused me.
Re:The real quesiton is... (Score:3, Informative)
Since I haven't read the book, I can't be sure...
Copyright and distribution terms (Score:5, Informative)
along with this message...
and on the first page of every chapter is this notice...Re:Copyright and distribution terms (Score:4, Informative)
Well said. I would like to emphasise though, the quoted extract.
What few people seem to realise is that Stallman doesn't advocate a blanket application of copyright law to all kinds of works. He states that functional works, computer software in particular, should be treated very differently to works, such as this book, that present the coherent thoughts of a single author. This is why "verbatim" is quickly followed by "or with modification" in the GNU GPL but not here -- to modify these articles would be to misrepresent the views of the author.
The reasoning behind this conclusion is long and better described by Stallman himself.
Moderation of article (Score:5, Funny)
Some people say vi zealots are unreasonable. I disagree, I think you should have to press a special sequence of characters before you can edit a document. ;)
I'll gladly pat $25.00 for this book (Score:2, Funny)
Ideology is less dangerous than *lack* of it. (Score:2, Interesting)
Why doesn't RMS bother with other professions? (Score:4, Insightful)
My theory is that other professions have a much larger barrier of entry then software development. It's easy as a software developer to cheapen the value of the time it takes to write code, whereas with an airplane you can't cheapen the value of raw materials. It's sad to see that the most valuable aspect of any product - the time put in by people - is the least valued by RMS (from my perspective).
Re:Why doesn't RMS bother with other professions? (Score:2)
There are free documentation (hmm, wheres the online version of *this* book) licenses, as you can copy an electronic form of a book easilly. You cant copy an airplane.
Re:Why doesn't RMS bother with other professions? (Score:2)
So? If it can be cheapened, it will be cheapened. That's economics.
Once software writing becomes almost too cheap to support new software development, supply and demand says that it will stop getting cheaper. No big deal.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why doesn't RMS bother with other professions? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why doesn't RMS bother with other professions? (Score:3, Insightful)
What doesn't the ACLU worry about rainforest decimation? Why doesn't the EFF broaden their focus to workers compensation?
An organziation needs a focus. If you broaden your focus too much, you dilute your message and risk alienating potential supporters who agree with part of your message but not all of it. And if you're a small organization (and compared to say the ACLU, the FSF is microscopic), you only have so much time and energy to spend. By focusing they increase their chances of doing good.
Furthermore, software has a certain special place in copyright law shared with few other areas. Software is both functional and expressive. Without the source, it's functionally impossible for an end user to modify it. I'd be hard pressed to modify my copy of Microsoft Office, but I can pretty easily modify my car or a book I've purchased.
This has nothing to do with the cheapening of developer time. Remember that RMS comes from a developer background. Many Free Software supporters (like myself) are professional programmers. He highly values the time put in by people, and so do I. But the person who built my car also put in alot of time, but I'm free to modify it, install off-brand parts, and general do as I will with it. Why does the personal who wrote my software get to control how I use it?
Let's look at an idealized "perfect Stallman world" in which he gets everything he wants (as near as I can tell). It becomes hard to sell software, because once one copy is sold it will be copied and resold for increasingly smaller prices until it has a zero price. Does this mean no software will be written and software developers will starve? Certainly not. First, more software is written strictly for in-company use. There was never a goal to sell it. If the company is concerned that there are valuable secrets in their in-company software, they can use "trade secret" law to protect it from being spread just fine. This leaves the much smaller segment of software for sale. Will the market shrink? Perhaps. However, much of the value of purchased software has always been support and warrantee. (Well, that's the theory. In practice much commericial software has useless support and disclaims any warrantees, but anyway...). So there opens a market for selling support and warrantees, and who best can support and warrantee the product besides the authors? Also, if software is open, there opens a large market for developers who will assemble existing products to create customized solutions for particular clients. Ultimately, the software is needed. The people who write the software need to make money. Something will be worked out, be it the Street Performer Protocol [firstmonday.dk], tips, sponsorship by a company providing support and warrantee (essentially what RedHat and many other distributors do now), or something else.
I'm a software engineer and I support Free Software, and I'm not worried in the slightest about Free Software destroying my career. I may need to remain flexible, especially when I take jobs writing software for sale, but the work will remain.
He's a badassed coder (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, Wal-Mart is selling a PC with Linux for $200, showing how the most expensive part is the Windows tax. Now THAT will do a LOT of good as it'll get middle America gets comfortable with Linux.
The Right to Read and RMS overall (Score:5, Insightful)
The best example I have is his story The Right to Read. When I first read it (very soon after it was first made available), I dismissed it as a political tract with very little basis in reality. I knew that the fairly recent dawn of the e-book was a Bad Thing (tm), but I certainly didn't think that anything could ever progress to the sci-fi horror world that rms invented.
Not long ago I realized how wrong I was about that. The world (or at least US legislation, as purchased by the RIAA and MPAA and executed in things like DMCA) has caught up with Richard's dystopian future. Now I can not only picture it, I believe it is likely to happen.
I can no longer view rms as a radical. If he will not compromise, perhaps it is because the alternative is so terrible that compromise is simply not possible.
Re:The Right to Read and RMS overall (Score:2)
What about those who..... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you find that too wordy I'll make an alternate version for you. What if you don't have a problem with a company using copy protection so that they can earn money for the software they produce, be able to pay their developers, and not have to resort to subsitance programming...ie. Open Source?
Lessig's Analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
People don't pay lawyers for the content of the various documents they produce -- that's why so often the highest-paid lawyers in a firm rarely write anything; the actual crafting of briefs, etc. is often left to junior associates or even paralegals. The value lawyers bring (and yes, this is a gross oversimplification, but is true at least 80% of the time) is that they know which form to file, where to file it and have access to the people who get things done.
To sum up, the legal analogy fails because you (usually) don't need a specialist to tell you what program to run, and you don't need a specially-credentialled person to run the program for you.
Why is it open VERSUS closed? (Score:2)
dogmatic == reasonable?? (Score:3, Insightful)
To be dogmatic is to have set ones mind on "The Answer" and not let go, no matter what, as inflexibly as possible. Dogmatic does not ipso facto mean you're wrong, but it sure as hell does not make you "reasonable".
Source of confusion (Score:2, Interesting)
So personally I do not think that Stallman is "crazy" or anything but I find it hard in my own life to apply the GPL to the software I write, because if I did I would be fired and prosecuted for stealing Intellectual Property.
He is very reasonable by my measures. (Score:3, Insightful)
Pedantic.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that no one ever complains when RIAA and Microsoft etc. do it? The are always careful about choosing the words extremely carefully (I bet they pour money into such "research") and then market it aggressively.
The point is that it's not just nitpicking. It does matter. The "literal english meaning" of the term does have an effect on how we think about what the term describes.
With the success of microsofies, today,
Copyright Infringement is called piracy , and I bet almost everyone outside of the slashdot crowd does think it is indeed a sort of stealing (even though the person from which it was "stolen" retained their copy.). The term used did therefore, have an effect on how people think about it.
Untrusted computing is thought of as "Trusted computing".
Draconian Digital free speech curbes and Digital rights restrictions are known as "digital right managements".
Their Trying to ascribe concepts of ownership to nonmaterial stuff and to such ridiculous things as my genes, time-honored agriculture traditions, idea, prices of products is called "Intellectual Property".
Insecure systems are thought of as 'systems protected by virus-protecting software'.
Secure systems are thought of as systems lacking antivirus software.
A communistic "landgrab" of all new laws they can think of by buying the government, is called democracy.
A market literally choked in almost any field of software or hardware by one ruler, and choked by respective players in other fields, is called a "free market".
As reasonable as any other singleminded person (Score:3, Interesting)
You have to respect such people for their zealotry, but that doesn't mean they're the kind of person you'd walk to work on a project--one that has to make slight concessions to the was of the world--with. At least Stallman has the experience and intelligence that make him worth listening to, unlike most of the people who write crazy anti-copyright rants for osopinion.com and other inbred sites.
If all software was Free (Score:5, Funny)
Do not underestimate Free Software.
Re:hypocritical (Score:2)
Free implies free. And besides that, even if you don't think so, FSF does:
(from gnu.org)
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Re:hypocritical (Score:3, Informative)
> The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
RMS's essays are available for Free as In Beer, all over the web. Also free as in speech, because you dont have to pay for the book to get access to the ideas and thoughts that went into them.
RMS isn't charging you because the only place to get the ideas in the book is buying the book. He's charging you because you should be free to charge whatever you like for you work; you simply shouldn't be able to sell the product by withholding the ideas in the product unless you purchase.
Today, we have tons of Franchise Pimps: companies that produce exclusive works and dont allow you access to the ideas of those works without buying those works. They hold the ideas hostage behind the distribution layer of those ideas.
RMS isn't doing that; he's charging you because some work went into collecting, compiling and publishing those works.
That is, you're paying for the BOOK, not the IDEA. Just like how software should be; you should be paying for the work, not the exclusivity of the ideas behind that work (because presumably, those ideas should be protected in some limited term by copyright or patents
Free doesn't imply free; you just assume, contrary to the very function of copyright and patent laws, that holding ideas hostage and manipulating your asking price because your ideas are exclusive to your distribution/publication layter, is required to make money. Nothing in history supports this view, although the current mindset in business has yet to take their beer blasses off (pun intended.)
Re:hypocritical (Score:2)
You're using scarcity to drive up your asking price; and market fundamentals state that using exclusivity and rarity to influence market price runs against the very notion of an open market where competition manages the effenciency of resources and work.
And what utopian world is that? The Utopian world of patents, where YOU HAVE TO PUBLISH THE METHODS OF YOUR IDEA TO EVERYONE ON THE PLANET before collecting a SINGLE CENT OFF OF IT?
Re:My Problem with RMS (Score:3, Insightful)
This is quite silly. Maybe they have actually explored other ways of thinking and have found it lacking?
Imagine if Einstein took this guideline of yours to heart. Should Galilean relativity be given up
The point is that MOST PEOPLE ARE THE ONES WHO DO ACTIONS UNTHINKINGLY, and that Richard has done it differently, which is why his words and ideas are valuable. You can tell that he has THOUGHT about these issues at great length. Have you thought about your guideline at great length? How did you decide that it should be used on him?
Re:My Problem with RMS (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure this true. RMS has a very specific vision, and holds on to it, its true. This does not mean that he has not examined other view points.
It's also clear that when he started he was aware that what he was attempting to do was fairly hard, and that there was a lot going against him. He would not have got where he has if he were the compromising sort. Do we criticise someone who gets to the top of hill, for failing to compromise, for listening to those who said "it's too tall, don't bother".
"This is typical of someone who is not very bright"
And this really is wrong. I know some extremely brilliant people, who are modest, and considerate of others opinion. But I also know some who are pugalistic, stubborn, and arrogant.
You are right, bright people will ask questions constantly. If they are stubborn, then this will not show itself as self-doubt. It just means that if you criticise their views, they will probably already have thought of it first!
"socialism which is tradionally a suppporter of atheisim"
"Religion is the hope for the hopeless, the heart in the heartless world". Karl Marx.
During the early birth of socialism, the church was a massive powerful organisation, which was why socialists where interested in it. Nowadays in many countries this is not so, and religion has just become an irrelevance to the political question.
"we have RMS who some would say exhibits an actual God complex."
You really are confusing things very badly. If RMS thought he were god, he wouldn't try so hard to change things. He is single minded, and driven. No more, and no less.
"we see RMS refusing to adapt to this challenging environment,"
As you have pointed out, Stallman is uncompromising. He does not want to adapt to the environment, he wants to change it. And he has done.
Phil
Re:My Problem with RMS (Score:5, Funny)
Gosh. What a fresh and insightful perspective. Until now, I've only heard from people that hate RMS because of his sloppy software programming.
Re:My Problem with RMS (Score:2)
Re:My Problem with RMS (Score:3, Funny)
Well, hell man, he did give us emacs: the software that requires ASCII extended out with six meta/alt/control bits and three hands on the keyboard to operate fully.
(Can you tell I'm a vi user?
Re:My Problem with RMS (Score:5, Interesting)
I suppose my other big problem is that, while the majority of people are moderates on most issues, it's the uncompromising radicals who move society. If RMS backed down from a fight with a polite "There's room for both of us" or "Maybe we can find a solution that works for both of us," none of us would know his initials and free software quite likely wouldn't exist. It certainly wouldn't exist with all the freedoms we associate with it now.
Re:Free Text? (Score:2)
Note that they do want content to be unencumbered by license agreements, but there's no indication they think it should be gratis.
Re:Why is this a troll, please? (Score:2)
OTOH, I do think that it should be moderated as funny.
because you, and your parent poster are stupid (Score:2)
Re:Why is this a troll, please? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll make this point again. I can easily go to the GNU project page, look at the definition of Free software (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html [gnu.org]), and see that freedom to redistribute code is a pre-condition for Free software.
I wonder what would happen if I bought the book, scanned the pages, and started distributing them online... I'm sure it would be interesting, at any rate. My opinion is that if there was a commitment on their part to allow this, it would be available (possibly for fee) in an electronic format. But it's not.
Re:Why is this a troll, please? (Score:2)
Yep, just as a book should include the words that are put together to make it a book, software should include the code that is put together to make it software.
Re:GPL is not free (Score:2)
In order of "free" to "non free"
EULA -> copyrighted program -> copylefted [GPL] Program -> BSD -> public domain
GPL forces everyone else to release modifications as GPL. BSD allows modifications released as anything, as does public domain.
Assume you had rights to do anything by default
BSD & public domain dont restrict *DEFAULT LEVEL*
GPL restricts rights to restrict rights of other people using modifications
Copyright restrict rights to copy
EULA restrict rights to use.
Assuming you have no rights by default
EULA grants limited rights to use the program *DEFAULT LEVEL*
Copyright grants rights to use the program without redistributing
GPL grants rights to use the program and redistribute the program on condition you allow others the same rights
BSD/Public domain grants rights to use the program and redistribute the program and change the licence to a more restrictive one
In current copyright law:
EULA restricts rights
Copyright neither grants nor restricts rights *DEFAULT LEVEL*
GPL grants rights
BSD/Public domain grants more rights
Dunno the difference between BSD and public domain though - BSD used to have advertising clauses, not sure now.
Re:GPL is not free (Score:2)
EULA -> copyrighted program -> copylefted [GPL] Program -> BSD -> public domain
Or the other way around, doh!
Re:GPL is not free (Score:2)
No, you can keep the modifications to yourself.
If, however, you choose to distribute these modifications, you must distribute them as GPL, and not some other license.
Re:GPL is not free (Score:2)
Never forget kerberos.
Re:GPL is not free (Score:3, Insightful)
To the software user - the GPL is free-er because it requires the distributors of software to that user to release the source. It even allows him to make secret changes not as GPL, as long as he doesn't distribute them.
To the software creator - the GPL is less free, and also in regard to a specific GPL'd source, it is less free.
I prefer the freedom for software users, as the "freedom" of software creators/distributors is not at all valuable, and not to be confused with other things meant to give software distributors an incentive to create work.
Re:GPL is not free (Score:5, Insightful)
Congratulations, you have your ideal world, and you didn't have to do any work to achieve it! Your ideal world, in which there is a mix of MIT, BSD licenses, the GPL, and the licenses of Microsoft, Sun, Sony, and so on, is the world we live in now.
The proponents and owners of the "fascist" licenses are now trying to enlist the governments of the world to help them maintain a stranglehold on the market and people's freedoms to use computers to their full potential. The DMCA is a product of your ideal world.
Your freedom (as in, your freedom to think what you want, read what you want, spend your money as you want, work and live where you wish, maintain your privacy as you wish) is becoming inextricably linked to your freedom to control computers and software. Repeat: IF YOU CANNOT CONTROL COMPUTERS AND THE SOFTWARE THEY RUN, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR FREEDOM. Put another way, severe restrictions can and will be put on how you are allowed to live your life.
Your "ideal world" is the vision of a lazy person who thinks (or hopes) that everything will work out for the best. RMS is not such a person, which is perhaps why you do not seem to understand what the FSF is about.
Re:GPL is not free (Score:5, Informative)
Must we have this discussion again?
The GPL puts restrictions on adding restrictions. The restriction not to add restrictions is a restriction reducing measure. No wishing for more wishes, no freedom to restrict freedom.
Your oversimplified interpretation of the word "free" is laughable. If there are 1 billion people in the world, the GPL guarantees 1 billion people every freedom related to the software in question save one not only for the original work, but for every possible derivative work. A non-GPL license preserves no rights at all relating to derivative works. The only case in which the users end up with less freedom under the GPL is in a case where a piece of software is BSD/MIT licensed, and no one actually creates a closed derived work- in which case no one wanted to exercise that freedom anyway, and therefore no one would actually have been restricted from doing anything anyway. So among all possible users, the freedom granted by the GPL is provably greater than that granted by your precious MIT license.
My ideal world is one where there is a wide mix of software and sofware licenses in use. Some are free, like MIT. Some promote social goals, like GPL. Some are commercial. And some are facist.
Don't they teach you how to spell in troll-school? You can keep your "facist" licenses.
Re:GPL is not free (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's say that a govt. department, like the DoE write some code, and release the source to version 1.0 in the public domain. Organization A, which is itself a taxpayer, and whose shareholders and employees are taxpayers, take this code, and with their own time, money and equipment develop it into version 2.0, a commercial product. That in no way restricts the right of the public at large to version 1.0 source code, yet it means that A also see a tangible benefit to all the tax they pay.
This is freedom; restricting the right of A to benefit is not. Stallman's idea that you can charge what you want for GPL products is ridiculous, A would sell precisely one copy in that model, and would be highly unlikely to be able to recoup their investment if their product was aimed at the mass market.
GPL is anti-freedom therefore when it is applied to anything that is not developed entirely with private money. Stuff that is developed entirely privately can be released under whatever license the original owners prefer.
GPL is freer than copyright (Score:2)
I think it's important to point out: while the GPL isn't entirely free, it's certainly freer than the default rules for works protected by copyright. If you're going to take a hard line position than any restriction makes software non-free, even MIT/BSD licenses aren't free (They require that the copyright notice and warrantee disclaimer remain intact). Ultimately the only things that are totally "without restriction" are things in the public domain. (And regrettably, you can be liable for things you put in the public domain, which is why the MIT/BSD licenses have the restrictions that they do.) At some point you need to draw a line between free and non-free. I chose to draw it at "United States copyright law is the beginning of non-free." It sounds like you draw it at "Anything more than requiring a copyright statement and warrantee disclaimer is non-free." But I think it's important to specify where your line is.
Re:GPL is not free (Score:3, Insightful)
The FSF thinks that free software should be a right -- perhaps derived from the right to free speech. Thus, they've engineered the GPL to prevent corporations from taking free code and using it as the base on which to build code that is not freem, thus violating what the FSF considers to be a right.
Its very simple: the FSF wants to give the user and developer freedom, but not the power to take away other people's freedomrights...and the FSF considers free software a right; they also consider proprietary software a violation of that right. Thus, they don't want to aid in the creation of proprietary software.
Re:GPL is not free (Score:2)
That is why the individual must be the focus instead of the group. This is why free societies form their groups through cooperation rather than control.
Re:Who cares if they make a non-free version... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who cares if they make a non-free version... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah! I get it now! The Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman are NOT for freedom. They are for equality.
I like equality, but I won't trade my liberty for it.
Re:Oh great (Score:2)
Re:Selling software for a living (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, Stallman's ideas make perfect economic sense, if you make a couple of assumptions:
Of course, from his ivory tower at MIT, the world may well look like this. But until such time as it actually is (i.e. never) he might be a great software developer but as far as economics or politics goes, he's just another crackpot.