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Comment by Karunamon | Hacker News Reader

What use is the GPL to someone who is not a developer?

Serious, non-snarky question. If you don't have the ability to modify or interpret the source code due to lack of time or knowledge, what exactly is the benefit?

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By receiving GPLed software (with sources), compared to closed-down software that contains non-copyleft code?

- No lock-in, no artificial obsolescence. This is huge.

- Better security: Much lesser risk of backdoors, homecalling "telemetries", weakened crypto, adware

- Ability to pay 3rd parties to perform auditing, bugfixes, improve compatibility, even resurrect dead projects if needed

Completely agree. And extending the last point: the ability to, if needed, learn how the thing works by yourself and try to fix it/modify it to fit your needs.

You don't need prior knowledge of plumbing to try and fix your broken kitchen, specially on today's world, with so much free information available. In a similar way, you don't need to be a software developer to hack your way through and learn how a program works and try to change it.

If I don't know how to interpret and write code, the first thing is meaningless to me.

If I don't check every single compiler and binary I ever run, the second thing is meaningless (open source malware is still malware), and I think Heartbleed is a great counterpoint to Linus' law. Availability of code does not change people's specializations or give them more hours in a day.

The last one is probably the only fair point, but then again, incompatible data formats happen among open source projects too.

Quite a few strawmen here.

> If I don't know how to interpret and write code, the first thing is meaningless to me.

No. Knowledge like, for example, mathematics is unencumbered by patents and accessible to everybody. All humanity, directly or indirectly, benefits from it. Same for the freedom to read and modify code.

> If I don't check every single compiler and binary I ever run, the second thing is meaningless (open source malware is still malware)

Mandatory food labeling, traceability and hygiene standards clearly improve food safety for everybody. Same here.

>I think Heartbleed is a great counterpoint to Linus' law.

Not at all: given enough eyeballs

Besides, perfect security is impossible and some cases of food poisoning don't disprove the effectiveness of food quality standards.

> Availability of code does not change people's specializations or give them more hours in a day.

Availability of code allowed me and others to learn and review code.

> incompatible data formats happen among open source projects too.

Cherry picking again? Deliberate use of incompatible formats in order to create lock-in is very infrequent in comparison with closed source.

You only need _one_ power user to disable the lock-in mechanism or to discover the security holes. After that, every user benefits even if they themselves cannot do such things.

Of course open source projects also suffer from bugs and incompatibilities, that's obvious and uninteresting. The point is that when you run into one of those, you have options available other than calling Larry Ellison and begging him to please fix your problems.

I only need __one__ power user (or employee) to do the same thing with the proprietary software. It happens all the time.

Yeeeeeah, that's kinda like saying you can get your drugs from a police evidence locker. You only need __one__ burglar or rotten cop! It happens all the time! Why do we need dealers or legal distribution anyway?

Plus you're contradicting your own argument. First you state that open source doesn't matter unless you can personally read and modify the code. Now you state that you're fine with proprietary software, because you only need one of the company's employees to remove lock-ins and fix security holes for you. Which one is it? Do you require being able to solve problems yourself, or can you rely on others?

I think you've misunderstood my argument (and not to mention mischaracterized with this loaded comparison of software to drugs!)

One way or another, you're always relying on others. The contrived person who audits all their own source for all their apps down to the compiler level does not exist. Systems are too complicated for that.

At that point, the question becomes "who do you rely on?" - and especially given recent history, I'm not convinced that "everyone who knows how to make a pull request" is a better answer than "only the people that made it". Certainly not convinced enough to begin moralizing about software development schemes...

The benefit is that the Four Freedoms[1] are preserved.

[1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

Freedom 0 exists with BSD code, 1-3 are worthless as a non developer.

So I'll ask again: What's the benefit to someone who isn't a developer?

Freedoms 1-3 exist with BSD, too, they just aren't protected.

There are few cases where freedom 0 exists without the other 3, but one case where that's true is with some of the Microsoft tooling around the CLR. In such cases, I, as someone who doesn't know low-level Windows programming, can't realistically change the software myself, but I could pay someone else to do it. But since I don't have freedoms 1-3, my only option is to pay MS if I want that modification. There is a very small group of people in the world who can afford to pay Microsoft for customizations. So even as someone who would never make modifications to the software, I care (and my boss who wasn't even a developer would care) because we had to work around limitations of our tools rather than paying someone to fix them.

To me, the free software philosophy assumes that every user is a developer, or at least, it asserts that any user should be capable of comprehending and modifying any code that runs on their system, and defends their right to do so. The distinction between the two ("user" and "developer") exists because proprietary software and commercial software created a fundamental disconnect between the processes of ownership and development, and because computers have gotten too complex for any single person to fully comprehend. But it's not a distinction that should exist.

Or, it exists because there are infinitely more people who use software than even know how it works. Let's say that tomorrow, society gets together and mandates that any and all computer code is subject to the GPL.

Do you maintain that the user/developer distinction goes away? I don't think it does.

>Do you maintain that the user/developer distinction goes away? I don't think it does.

I would argue that wouldn't be sufficient to remove it in practice, since a good part of that distinction is cultural. People aren't taught to interact with their code because most computers are closed systems, making such interaction impossible, and most software is merely a product to be consumed.

Almost no one (understandably) wants to know how to use a c compiler to build the source code for their applications, much less take the time to review and modify it, no one wants to configure and maintain, even in the open source world it's unusual to actually contribute.

However, it would at least be a distinction without a legal difference.

I can't agree with that. I know how to read and write code, but I do not have the time to maintain, say, a fork of Firefox to fix their questionable UI direction, much less deal with the politics of getting my changes into the mainline app.

Stallman's ideal world, and by the sound of it, yours, is one in which everyone is a programmer. Put simply, as nice as it would be, this is totally impractical and unrealistic. Opening up a field to all comers does not meaningfully change what people enjoy and specialize in and spend their time on.

It's definitely impractical, as ideal worlds usually are. It made a lot more sense when most computers were in universities, being accessed by engineers, and when compiling from source was just what you had to do, and "software" was a much more fixed concept. But complexity has a way of undermining many utopian visions. I'm not certain the modern web would exist in an all free-software world, or what it would look like.

I'm more of an open source than free software person, since I don't buy into the fundamental moral argument of free software, but I have to admit I find the general principle that all software should be editable to be appealing. Knowing how to write software and choosing not to, or at least having the choice one way or the other, to me, is better than not having the choice to begin with.

You're entirely missing the point of what freedom means. The point is that you have the freedom to exercise 1-3 if you choose to do so. It doesn't matter if the user isn't currently a developer, and it doesn't matter if there is any practical benefit. The freedoms themselves are inherently valuable.

What use is the freedom of the press to someone who isn't a journalist?

It's a benefit to readers / citizens to have information that is not completely controlled by a government, party or corporation.

Correct! And it's a benefit to users to have software that is not completely controlled by a government, party or corporation.

    <post type="devils-advocate">

Instead, it's controlled by an unaccountable mass of people who may or may not be working with their best interests in mind. Instead of abusing a user's wallet, they instead abuse their time, attention, or data.

Off the top of my head, Ubuntu's Amazon integration, Freedesktop's push to Systemd all the things, Firefox's new page ads...

    </post>

The difference between a corporation and a large FOSS project is limited to their goals and probably values. Both are generally subject to a central figurehead or committee who makes all the decisions and chooses how the project will evolve. I can't go propose a change to the Linux kernel unless Linus likes it. I could maintain my own fork, but it would consume nearly all of my free time.

It seems to me that all this talk of freedom is mostly philosophical, rather than practical.

> I can't go propose a change to the Linux kernel unless Linus likes it. I could maintain my own fork, but it would consume nearly all of my free time.

But if that change is not that big or fundamental you can still apply a patch with relative ease. Thats already huge compared to most proprietary Software.

> It seems to me that all this talk of freedom is mostly philosophical, rather than practical.

I disagree. It may not be always that easy in practice to take advantage of your freedom but that makes it not worthless. Maybe it's too much work for you to maintain a (partial) fork of the Linux kernel but if you find yourself a group of like minded people it may be perfectly possible. Free software also is by far unable to magically fix all of our societies problems but it is one tiny part of making the world better.

Free software fosters collaboration. You don't only benefit from being able to study and modify the source code yourself. You also benefit from others being able to do it. Because then they can help you.

You can hire someone to interpret it for you if you need to. For example, hiring a specialist to do a security audit, a task which is beyond the normal expertise of most developers.

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