Richard Stallman Calls Open Source Movement 'Amoral', Criticizes Apple And Microsoft For 'Censoring' App Installation (newleftreview.org) 239
Richard Stallman recently gave a 9,000-word interview in which he first reminisces about his early days at MIT's AI Lab where he "found something worth being loyal to" -- and then assesses how things have played out.
Open source is an amoral, depoliticized substitute for the free-software movement... [I]t's not the name of a philosophy -- it refers to the software, but not to the users. You'll find lots of cautious, timid organizations that do things that are useful, but they don't dare say: users deserve freedom. Like Creative Commons, which does useful, practical work -- namely, preparing licences that respect the freedom to share. But Creative Commons doesn't say that users are entitled to the freedom to share; it doesn't say that it's wrong to deny people the freedom to share. It doesn't actively uphold that principle.
Of course, it's much easier to be a supporter of open source, because it doesn't commit you to anything. You could spend ten minutes a week doing things that help advance open source, or just say you're a supporter -- and you're not a hypocrite, because you can't violate your principles if you haven't stated any. What's significant is that, in their attempt to separate our software from our ideas, they've reduced our ability to win people over by showing what those ideas have achieved...
For a long time, Microsoft was the main enemy of users' freedom, and then, for the past ten years or so, it's been Apple. When the first iThings came out, around 2007, it was a tremendous advance in contempt for users' freedom because it imposed censorship of applications -- you could only install programs approved by Apple. Ironically, Apple has retreated from that a little bit. If a program is written in Swift, you can now install it yourself from source code. So, Apple computers are no longer 100 per cent jails. The tablets too. A jail is a computer in which installation of applications is censored. So Apple introduced the first jail computer with the iPhone. Then Microsoft started making computers that are jails, and now Apple has, you might say, opened a window into the jail -- but not the main door.
Stallman cites free-software alternatives to Skype like Linphone, Ekiga, and xJitsi, and also says he's In favor of projects like GNU social, a free software microblogging server, and the distributed social networking service Diaspora. "I know they're useful for other people, but it wouldn't fit my lifestyle. I just use email." In fact, he calls mobile computing one of the three main setbacks of the free-software movement. "[P]hones and tablets, designed from the ground up to be non-free. The apps, which tend now to be non-free malware. And the Intel management engine, and more generally the low-level software, which we can't replace, because things just won't allow us to do so....
"[P]eople in the software field can't avoid the issue of free versus proprietary software, freedom-respecting versus freedom-trampling software. We have a responsibility, if we're doing things in the software field, to do it in a way that is ethical. I don't know whether we will ever succeed in liberating everyone, but it's clearly the right direction in which to push."
Of course, it's much easier to be a supporter of open source, because it doesn't commit you to anything. You could spend ten minutes a week doing things that help advance open source, or just say you're a supporter -- and you're not a hypocrite, because you can't violate your principles if you haven't stated any. What's significant is that, in their attempt to separate our software from our ideas, they've reduced our ability to win people over by showing what those ideas have achieved...
For a long time, Microsoft was the main enemy of users' freedom, and then, for the past ten years or so, it's been Apple. When the first iThings came out, around 2007, it was a tremendous advance in contempt for users' freedom because it imposed censorship of applications -- you could only install programs approved by Apple. Ironically, Apple has retreated from that a little bit. If a program is written in Swift, you can now install it yourself from source code. So, Apple computers are no longer 100 per cent jails. The tablets too. A jail is a computer in which installation of applications is censored. So Apple introduced the first jail computer with the iPhone. Then Microsoft started making computers that are jails, and now Apple has, you might say, opened a window into the jail -- but not the main door.
Stallman cites free-software alternatives to Skype like Linphone, Ekiga, and xJitsi, and also says he's In favor of projects like GNU social, a free software microblogging server, and the distributed social networking service Diaspora. "I know they're useful for other people, but it wouldn't fit my lifestyle. I just use email." In fact, he calls mobile computing one of the three main setbacks of the free-software movement. "[P]hones and tablets, designed from the ground up to be non-free. The apps, which tend now to be non-free malware. And the Intel management engine, and more generally the low-level software, which we can't replace, because things just won't allow us to do so....
"[P]eople in the software field can't avoid the issue of free versus proprietary software, freedom-respecting versus freedom-trampling software. We have a responsibility, if we're doing things in the software field, to do it in a way that is ethical. I don't know whether we will ever succeed in liberating everyone, but it's clearly the right direction in which to push."
He only makes sense... (Score:2, Insightful)
... to freedom lovers.
guh (Score:1, Insightful)
"Apple computers" != "iThings", Richard.
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Re:He only makes sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
I almost never agree w/ rms, but I've finally found something where I can. The demand that Apple and Microsoft (and for that matter, Google) stop censoring what apps can be installed. I'm not aware about Microsoft censoring anything, since traditional applications can still be installed on Windows 10, but Apple and Google - their respective app stores are the only way to install things. So when they shut out apps like Gab, they are picking their own favored winners & losers
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Yes! The ONLY thing Apple and Google should be doing for their "app store" approval process is to make sure the app is not malware, i.e. won't infect/compromise your system.
If it's safe to install, the user should be allowed to install it without any other "permission" necessary.
Define "compromise your system" (Score:3, Interesting)
The ONLY thing Apple and Google should be doing for their "app store" approval process is to make sure the app is not malware, i.e. won't infect/compromise your system.
That depends on a precise definition of "compromise your system" on which all parties can agree. If you let Apple define "compromise your system", you end up with the present App Store Review Guidelines, just with an excuse below each line item as to why Apple deems a violation a "compromise" of the iOS experience.
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For this purpose, I define "compromise" as wresting control from the user.
Then I imagine all widely commercially available computing systems beyond 8-bit microcontrollers are compromised in some manner. This includes microcode updates, Intel Management Engine, WLAN radio firmware, etc. Would you be willing to define a degree of compromise such that the user can choose the lesser of two evils? Or had you instead intended to apply your definition in an absolute manner, rendering the majority of products unsuitable?
If you uninstall an app, your system should go back to the exact same state it was in before you installed it.
I imagine the user would not consider it "predictable" for the unins
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The key difference is that the user is informed about the control they are choosing to relinquish.
And I agree that Apple failed to do so, keeping the App Store Review Guidelines behind its paywall, until June 2014.
When such control is wrested from the user on false pretenses (asking for permission to do one thing, and then doing something other than stated) is what we call a "Trojan horse."
In the case of application censorship, is the "one thing" protecting users from applications that might damage the hardware and the "other thing" protecting users from e.g. hate speech, video game emulation, or use of 3D Touch as a drug scale?
Re: He only makes sense... (Score:5, Informative)
You can install apps on Android in other ways ranging from alternative app stores to downloading apk files from a web site.
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You're also free to install applications from outside the official app store on Android. You can sideload Gab client .apks all day long.
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Re: He only makes sense... (Score:1)
Os/2
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I'll have you know that when it rains there is often water under his bridge, and from time to time he swims in it.
He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
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It doesn't matter. It's far, far too late.
In less than 40 years from now, government will be global and authoritarian. Every minute detail about everyone every second of every day will be meticulously analyzed by powerful AIs for any deviations from accepted thought and behavior. Individual rights will no longer exist. People will be genetically bred and educated so as to lack the ability to even conceive of individual liberty or resisting authority.
Humanity is entering a Great Dark Age which it may never r
Re:He's right (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not really about right or wrong, it's about pragmatism.
It's easy to stand up and rattle on about how everything is evil, but people still need things to work. The real world is about compromise and choosing your battles. Hard core idealists serve a purpose, but they don't tend to drive effective change very often, and tend to be regarded (often correctly) as lunatics.
Re:He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, RMS has a habit of coming across unhinged on a topic, and then a few years later you realise he was dead right about it.
When I first read the "Right to read" thing, I thought it was nuts.
Then my damn Kindle died and I had to figure out how to get the books into another format. Well thanks to the DMCA it turns out I have to break the law to do that. But worse than that, a student who needs access to library journals now finds themselves in a situation of breaking the law vs DRM infested journal articles. The 'right to read' was 100% correct in its predictions. Well other than the "Tycho rebelion" or whatever it was, hey its Sci-Fi.
I could go on, but the point is, for all his faults, he's usually right about a lot more things than its often comfortable to admit.
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While I'll definitely agree that a lot of his predictions come true, I feel like many of them arn't exactly revolutionary nor surprising. A lot of us see the way things are playing out and are going to play out in the future.. but simply screaming about it does nothing.
Whether we like to admit it or not, a lot of technology (particularly hardware and infrastructure) often needs big business and government really driving it. What we are seeing is huge ongoing improvements in technology that is bringing real
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but simply screaming about it does nothing.
How on earth is that relevant to anything. You don't like what RMS has to say so you dismiss his well thought out carefully worded essays and his work setting up the FSF and GPL as "simply screaming".
That's such an immense misrepresentation.
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With a huge audience, yes it does something...
Re: He's right (Score:2)
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Unhinged and correct are not mutually exclusive.
I'm not about to deny RMS's accomplishments. And he has a pretty good track record about being correct. But he is a very poor spokesman for his movement; at least to anyone outside the hard-core nerd herd. Hell, I count myself as being fairly hard-core nerdly. But I wouldn't want to have a conversation with, or be in the same room as, him. Being right isn't enough. You also have to effectively communicate and persuade not just your niche, but the general
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The thing is, RMS has a habit of coming across unhinged on a topic, and then a few years later you realise he was dead right about it.
Richard Stallman disgusts me.
Then, I realized that he is merely a mirror to the folks at Microsoft and Apple, and they disgust me. They disgust me even more than RMS does because RMS is merely a reaction to the original disgusting thing: Turning software from a tool towards using computers into a tool towards gathering money.
I want software freedom. Microsoft wants to take it away so that they can gather resources (money). Richard wants to take it away so that all software everywhere gives freedom to the en
Re: He's right (Score:3)
One might also ask the question why all those platforms and advances happened in the commercial world and not the Free Software world? Why wasnâ(TM)t the mass market smartphone a Free Software development? Why is âoecommercialâ even seen as the opposite of âoefreeâ? RMS has a cause and thatâ(TM)s great, but he has not presented a system which advances mankind. Until he can articulate how an industry can be sustained and the pace of innovation retained, itâ(TM)s just a hobb
Re:He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, some childish folks do, I suppose, but that's nothing new or unique with polarizing figures. Some people like me simply disagree with his fundamental philosophy, while still respecting his opinion and what he and his contemporaries did for the state of computing decades ago. It seems like these days he's more advocate and software philosopher. I think he's definitely worth listening to, even if you don't necessarily agree with all the points he makes, because if nothing else, what he says often makes you think about how things are and how they could be better.
One problem is that his philosophy simply brushes aside any arguments one might have that inconveniently points out situations in which free software is not a practical solution. Let's take videogames, for example. No one has really figured out how to combine a popular consumer-goods-type product like that with the philosophy of free software. The common advice when asked how to make a living writing free software of "provide a service for hire to support your product" only works with some very narrow types of products, and never really with consumer-level products. So, essentially, videogames simply don't exist in Stallman's universe.
I do consider myself a proponent of "open source", but not necessarily "free software" as defined by Stallman. I use the MIT license, not GPL, because I feel that works better for the open source libraries I've released. I don't mind if people use them in open or closed source products. That's none of my concern. But I've made a contribution that other people can make use of if they choose.
Good article, btw.
Re:He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
Stallman is a deontologist, of sorts. By that I mean he subscribes to an ethical stance that basically asserts that certain things are moral or immoral, regardless of circumstance. Its a position normally associated with the philosopher Kant, who basically asserts that morals should be rooted in logic, not experience. So for instance Murder is wrong, because we ourselves would not want to be murdered (as being murdered denies us the ability to do other things and therefore it is illogical to want), and thus since an ethical code that only applies to one person is illogical (because something good can not be something bad, and thus good for me and bad for you contradicts), murder is always wrong, regardless of circumstance.
So I'd argue that RMS is a deontologist and that the right to source code comes from a 'perfect duty' (in Kants sense) to the truth. Because you should not lie to people, neither should your code, and thus providing the source allows another person to know the 'truth' of the software they run. And because we're talking deontology, we also have a right to assume that the other will behave the same way.
Now does that mean he's *correct*. Well not necessarily. Deontological positions are flawed in many respects. There might be circumstances where murder makes sense (You find out someone is going to kill you, and you realise the hitman is being protected by the police. You might just have to kill the hitman preemptively) or a lie makes sense (Someone asks where your wife works so they can go and murder her.) and perhaps there are times when non-free software might make a lot of sense.
But I'd argue that at the very least, RMS is right more often than he's now.
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Gah, Slashdot, when are you going to enter the modern age and let me fix typos.
"right more often than he's not" is what I mean there.
Slow down cowboy!
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I put in a suggestion years ago that they require a confirmation screen that allows you to proofread your submission before you commit it, but that doesn't seem to have been implemented. Well, at least based on posts like this one....
Something something horse to water, drinking, something.
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Slashdot's script-driven D2 inline comment form forces a preview before submission. Only its script-free D1 comment form, which appears when JavaScript is turned off or when the user opens "Reply to This" in a new tab or window, allows submitting a comment that has not been previewed.
Re: He's right (Score:2)
There's no preview on mobile.
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I know the experience differs for journals and submissions, which require a preview even with JS off. It may also differ between anonymous visitors and logged-in users, and that might be what you're seeing.
Re:He's right (Score:4, Insightful)
By that I mean he subscribes to an ethical stance that basically asserts that certain things are moral or immoral, regardless of circumstance.
Yes, RMS wants the world to be perfect and perfect is the enemy of good. If the world is using 100% "immoral" software and I had an idea to use 95% open source and 5% closed source he'd tell me that my idea was still immoral and that it should be 100% or I should walk away. It doesn't matter if it's better than what was before. It doesn't matter if 95% puts food on the table and going 100% would make me homeless. It's the same on the user side, you never have any other obligations or priorities that would make getting shit done more important than using morally sound software. And you can't waste a few minutes playing Angry Birds without the source code, it's not enough until you join him in the ivory tower of 100% purity.
It's like watching one of those eco-hippies with the carbon footprint of a mouse, I mean they're not bad people. But when being environmentally friendly becomes your one moral imperative that the rest of your life revolves around it's just too much for 99.9% of us. Like if you can't get to work without a car the answer is to move or quit your job. Whether you like steaks or not, being a vegetarian is more eco-friendly so quit eating meat. Stop going places because airplanes are carbon monsters, go camping in the woods. I mean most of us don't want to be polluting, wasteful eco-swines we usually look to be a bit greener but when you go over the top you end up pretty much alone in your lifestyle. I don't think the 0.1% save the world through their moral purity.
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Yes, RMS wants the world to be perfect and perfect is the enemy of good. If the world is using 100% "immoral" software and I had an idea to use 95% open source and 5% closed source he'd tell me that my idea was still immoral and that it should be 100% or I should walk away. It doesn't matter if it's better than what was before. It doesn't matter if 95% puts food on the table and going 100% would make me homeless.
That's why the decision to adopt Linux is so strange. Instead of pursuing a kernel with copyright assignment to the FSF (to allow for re-licensing) that required derivative works (linking programs) to be "free" they chose and continue to advocate for one based on a "tit-for-tat" contribution strategy including an explicit licensing clause overriding the GPL that allows non-free software to interoperate.
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Stallman is eminently logical; it should be clear to anyone with half a brain that the entire reason he embarked on his "moral quest" was because he could look ahead and see where we were headed.
The position he's taken is based on logic and practicality rather than idealogy; it just might require deeper thinking [than most people are capable of] to realize that.
Re: He's right (Score:2)
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No one has really figured out how to combine a popular consumer-goods-type product like that with the philosophy of free software.
There have been several games where a game engine is Open Source or even Free Software but the assets are not. That is exactly how to combine a popular consumer-goods-type product like that with the philosophy of free software.
So, essentially, videogames simply don't exist in Stallman's universe.
No, they don't exist in your universe. In our universe, this is already a solved problem.
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Full disclosure: I'm a big gamer and I do play proprietary games on Windows.
His philosophy brushing aside your argument that it's hard for game devs to make money selling Free software games is a feature, not a bug. His goal is for software *users* to have total control and freedom over the software that they choose to run. If a proprietary game studio shutters for whatever reason, that's a good thing thing in his eyes because that means there's one less group of people out there trying to restrict the free
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Let's take videogames, for example. No one has really figured out how to combine a popular consumer-goods-type product like that with the philosophy of free software. The common advice when asked how to make a living writing free software of "provide a service for hire to support your product" only works with some very narrow types of products, and never really with consumer-level products. So, essentially, videogames simply don't exist in Stallman's universe.
Why not use a Kickstarter or Patreon style funding model?
I know it's harder to extract money out of consumers after you're done building the project, but perhaps extracting the maximum profit out of consumers shouldn't be the point.
Re: He's right (Score:2)
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Sure they can!!! There have been very legitimate criticisms of all his jihads against all sorts of things - from 'Open Source' to non-GNU licenses. On this site, his stance on TiVo have been heavily criticized, as has been his demand that software should not have owners, and that programmers should do their coding on a voluntary basis, and seek to pay their bills some other way.
The criticism of his style - from his hygene to his habits - are just icing on the cake.
Re: He's right (Score:2)
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The argument in favor of TiVoization is that Tivo is not violating the original GNU 2 license by putting locked code on the flash devices of a set top box. Yeah, while GNU's 4 freedoms may call for the freedom to modify code on one's devices, the practical realities of TiVo recognize that if that company allowed customers to freely swap boot ROM, they could end up pilfering content, and make media companies blacklist TiVo boxes. RMS refused to see things from TiVo's POV, and like the good Trotskyist that
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Really, can't say I remember anything other than philosophy. The most important problem for me is that he doesn't seem to understand that computers are tools for the common people and that having something that works is infinitely better than something that is "free" but useless.
He is a fanatic with some good points. For an example of the first look at his thoughts on Linux, oh, I mean GNU/Linux.
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No, they criticize him for being an ivory tower idealist clueless about the real world. And they're right. No one is going to hire Stallman to make a functioning OS kernel for the real world, his HURD floundered for 35 years and it's still useless as ever.
Re: He's right (Score:2)
No, he is NOT right. (Score:2)
RMS is an absolutist that believes that the author or a work should have fewer rights than those who receive the work.
He quite firmly believes that it is immoral for someone who creates a work (a program) should not be allowed to do what they want with that program; that they SHOULD HAVE TO distribute the source code for the work. If RMS had his way, all software would always be mandated to be GPL, and licenses like BSD and MIT would not exist.
I am sorry, but I fundamentally disagree with many of RMS's view
Re: No, he is NOT right. (Score:2)
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Because getting the style wrong (especially at epic Stallman scale) actually matters, and ultimately contaminates the substance, too.
But you win. Your quaint, absolute division of style and substance is the freedom-fighter Exacto knife Stallman imports into every moral domain.
Steve Jobs: reality distortion field, reified.
Richard Stallman: nuance suppression field, reified.
On the high bluffs of Mt Rushmore, E
Re: He's right (Score:2)
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People typically criticize Stallman based on style, because they can't touch him based on substance.
Well he's certainly right that mobile devices have been designed from the ground up to be non-free but really the proliferation of such devices is because nobody designed one from the ground up to be free. Apple and Google got there first, innovated and took the market, there's no reason FOSS couldn't have innovated with a free solution. Of course the precursors to the modern smartphone came from RIM and Microsoft, again no FOSS innovation there.
It's not particularly dissimilar to the desktop market either,
Re: He's right (Score:2)
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I don't know if that's really true. Android started open from the ground up, anyway
No, some bits of the Android operating system were open but no device that you ran it on was open and by the time you had customized the OS (with relevant drivers and such) in order to actually run it on hardware it was not open.
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There is no moral absolutism one can ascribe to.
And then you went off the deep end. No one claimed there was moral absolutism.
We can agree on some basic principles
Oh wow! And then you contradict yourself. So what is it, can we agree on some basic principles or not?
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Stallman seems to be claiming that there is some absolute behavior or license that free software must use. Unless your software follows his rules it isn't free software. That's a problem because the idea of free isn't especially well defined like many other things. While he defines his idea of free software, it's not a universal concept that he can lay claim to. Criticizing open source because it doesn't follow his idea of free is basically the same as claiming "those people" are heretics because they bel
Re: He's right (Score:2)
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... So you/re wrong.
Before reading your post, I thought I had seen all possible misspellings of your/you're/etc., but I was indeed wrong :)
If you can’t argue the merits then argue the typos.
Re: He's right (Score:2)
Crazy old man yells at cloud. (Score:1)
Re: Crazy old man yells at cloud. (Score:2)
Enjoy your cartoons, then.
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The Simpsons hasn't been enjoyable since the late 90s.
pretty much, the original iThing had no apps (Score:2)
Crazy old man yells at cloud.... and spreads misinformation about how things work...
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Crazy old man yells at cloud....
Or, at least, sends email about it -- IN ALL CAPS.
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Careful with that righteousness (Score:1)
If you consider any and all different choices than yours to be "amoral", that's a vice.
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Amoral is not the same as immoral. The GPL is the way it is because RMS is taking a moral stance on software. Using a permissive license is in his view amoral because it is taking no moral stance. It's not in his view immoral (against his morals).
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That's his opinion. Others may say that open source is moral but the value system isn't precisely equivalent to Stallman's. Stallman is effectively claiming that his value system is the one and only.
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Open source is explicitly amoral, and nobody who knows what they're talking about says otherwise. Open source was designed precisely to strip the moralizing out of free software. Because there are many, many people and companies who find free software useful as a strategy for many things but don't share Stallman's belief that it's a moral issue.
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No matter what process you use, if all you're trying to do is create high-quality software, then that is an amoral position, because it is indifferent to morality.
However, if you're trying to create free software in the sense that RMS means (free as in freedom) then that is a moral position. It means you want the software you create to include certain freedoms that others have when they use your software, and that persist no matter what others do to that software.
Creating high-quality software and creating
Amoral but not immoral. (Score:5, Insightful)
Open source is amoral meaning that it shows no concern about whether behavior is morally right or wrong. However, this doesn't mean it's immoral (conflicting with morals). What this does is provides people with the source code and the choice of acting morally. This is real freedom for the recipient of the source code. The "free-software movement" removes this choice from the recipient of the source code by obligating them to act a certain way.
I'm just a guy that likes to write code that does something nice for people. I can only speak for myself but whether people want to use my code morally or not really my interest so I don't try to make it my business.
Do note that GPL'd tools are used as a basis for the most insidious and invasive systems devised (e.g. Facebook).
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What this does is provides people with the source code and the choice of acting morally. This is real freedom for the recipient of the source code.
Right. That's who Open Source licenses are designed to benefit, the recipient of the source code.
The "free-software movement" removes this choice from the recipient of the source code by obligating them to act a certain way.
Right. That's because Free Software licenses are designed to benefit the user, i.e. the recipient of the binary code. It is necessary to place some restrictions on the rights of the recipients of the source code to provide the maximum benefit to all of the recipients of the binary code.
I'm just a guy that likes to write code that does something nice for people.
That's too bad. I only like to do nice things for people who do nice things, because those are the people making a better world,
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I only like to do nice things for people who do nice things, because those are the people making a better world
That's a great oversimplification of reality. Obligating people to distribute source code changes does nothing to guarantee they are doing something positive for the world. Remember, Facebook is built atop of a Linux environment. Aside from that, a license doesn't even mean people will live up to their obligation as there are many GPL violators.
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That's too bad. I only like to do nice things for people who do nice things, because those are the people making a better world, and I want to live in a better world.
Given that the users and contributors to the Linux kernel include the likes of Microsoft, Facebook and Google I take it you don't make a habit of contributing (or advocating for contributing) to it.
Stallman can afford to take this stand (Score:5, Insightful)
br> My mom doesn't have the time, energy, inclination to learn how to program or maintain a home spooled build or double check the source code of every app she uses. She just wants it to work. And apple, for all of the complaints about the walled garden provides products that just work.
For comparison look at Android. Android has a much more open applications market. Also look at the Android current scandal involving hundreds of applications, ad fraud and millions of dollars. The casual user doesn't have the time to figure out if a particular app is also a time bomb, bitcoin miner, ad fraud machine or something else.
Yes, apple keeps things locked down with so tight it squeaks. But it also limits malevolent actors from stealing from innocent people. People trust that apps in the apple app store are not malicious. And that is the trade off: Safe Apps that aren't malicious instead of the android wild wild west.
Re: Stallman can afford to take this stand (Score:2)
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People trust that apps in the apple app store are not malicious.
That trust is misplaced. [fortune.com]
And that is the trade off: Safe Apps that aren't malicious instead of the android wild wild west.
But we have established that the apps on the app store aren't safe. Therefore the tradeoff is freedom for nothing.
Hi, Richard! (Score:1, Troll)
How’s the Hurd coming along?
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You do realize that
a) Nearly 100% of the userspace that makes your "Linux" system run is part of the GNU project? And, that much of it (enough to bootstrap the first "linux" distributions) was initially written before the Linux kernel was created. [old guy here, I ran Linux + GNU since nearly day one of Slackware, and everything worked really well (replaced SunOS for me; where I was already running a ton of GNU because it was technically superior to the included Sun bits)].
b) RMS was one of the folks who
GNU-less Linux systems exist (Score:3)
a) Nearly 100% of the userspace that makes your "Linux" system run is part of the GNU project
Not necessarily. Sure, you're running GNU/Linux if you use Debian, Fedora, or any other system built on GNU Coreutils, Bash, glibc, GCC, GTK+, and the like. But a lot of my Xubuntu laptop's RAM is occupied by things like X.Org X11, Xfce panel, Thunar, Mousepad, Firefox, GIMP, and other things that aren't "GNU software" because FSF doesn't own the copyright. GNU exceeds Linux [gnu.org] in distributions like these but is by no means the majority. There also exist Linux systems that use little or no GNU software [gnu.org], such a
Re: (Score:2)
CORRECTION: GIMP is GNU but what else is? (Score:2)
Thank you for the correction. I know FSF deliberately refuses to issue guidance for how much GNU software qualifies a distribution for the "GNU/" name. But is there a definition for whether a particular package is part of GNU or not?
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you mean the GNU project sucked up other successful projects, even the C compiler they made was total shit until another group rebuilt it properly...and then GNU took it back
HURD proves Stallman and company can't manage a medium-sized effort to save their life, let alone a real life kernel.
Stallman is okay for idea guy but actual real world stuff not his forte.
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in HURD case it does mean failure, 35 years of trying to build something and it's as useless as it ever was.
Who wants to side (Score:2)
I actually read the whole interview. (Score:2)
It is not hard to install a dual-boot Linux, or to install GIMP parallel to the PhotoShop, etc. And give them a try, at least from time to time.
It would make the commercial soft to work better, when one have a ready alternative. This way I use nowadays mostly GIMP and OpenOffice, not for ideological reasons, but because they have features which I need.
It's amoral...GOOD! (Score:2)
Sorry, but I don't want someone dictating to me what I can and cannot do with my own software based on some cockeyed sense of "morality".
Especially since people all tend to be at least MILDLY hypocritical at times.
Also, if I'm putting out my own software in OSS, I don't want to limit the reach of my project with arbitrary "morality clauses".
That kind of shit is pure poison.
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I'd like to know how you came to THAT brainstorm of a position...
The slaves just don't want to be free. (Score:1)
Stallman maybe has to learn to chill. (Score:2)
I say maybe, because we all know we need him as society needs the crazy guy living in the mountains warning of how things can go bad.
But while Stallman is right 95% of the time he also needs to get over the fact that for most people - including me - free (as in speech) software and open source software are the same thing. In fact, open source is a more distinct term than "free" and thus much more precise. We all know that if MS offers some "open shared source" bullshit that restricts its users it is not ope
Gatekeeping (Score:5, Informative)
What Facebook has taught me is that most people are sheep. Based simply on what people share (absolutely ridiculous things that they believe is true, and don't care one iota about validating or verifying, that any normal person with common sense should know is almost certainly a scam). Do any of you have friends or family members who just kept infecting their computer over and over opening emails or links or believing some popup on a web page that said their computer was infected and they needed to download a tool to clean it? That is the "normal" general population in an online computing environment. They do not care about the technical aspects, only the most superficial functionality the software provides.
My conclusion is that the average person *requires* some gatekeeping and protection against their own lack of interest, lack of effort and lack of motivation to protect themselves. When it comes to platforms / hardware, like iPhone, or Android, or Windows, people gain an impression of that platform by how easily it lets them shoot themselves in the foot. Oh, they won't accept responsibility that they are the problem. Of course not. But if platform Y makes it harder to shoot themselves in the foot than platform X, then they will perceive platform Y as being better. Because it is, from a user experience point of view.
Stallman makes an assumption in his reasoning that everyone is him. And that is flawed. He is atypical, in regards to computing and software.
Finally, I will say that this statement is flat out wrong:
Apple. Ironically, Apple has retreated from that a little bit. If a program is written in Swift, you can now install it yourself from source code.
That has nothing to do with Swift. Since the beginning of 3rd party iOS app development (iOS version 2), you could always install and run any software you compiled on devices that you physically connected to the Mac. That could be in Objective-C or C++ or C, and of course now includes Swift as well. Additionally, XCode has always been free.
Of course it is amoral (Score:2)
It is amoral and unpolitical.
It is not unmoral.
There is a difference in being neutral and in being negative.
Obligatory XKCD reference (Score:2)
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Software with readable but all rights reserved source code is sufficient to safeguard privacy
How much "Software with readable but all rights reserved source code" executes on a typical end user computing device, compared to the amount of software whose source code is a trade secret?
Re: Not sure about that (Score:4, Insightful)
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You talk like someone who's never really *used* OS X. It was, and is, a Unix system that anyone can install and administer. That makes it a Very Good Thing, especially compared with the crap that is Windows.
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*dingdingdingding* We have a winner!
This is me, exactly. (Well, I'm not the AC who posted that, but he said exactly how I feel about it.) The computer doesn't care about your morals. Neither do your customers. They just want software that works.