Comment by mikekchar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikekchar | Hacker News Reader

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Even RMS, in the past, did not object to all proprietary code. For example games that are a work of art could in some ways be seen as something that might not be modifiable by the end use. He has changed his mind on a lot of topics over the years and I'm not 100% sure about his current thoughts on the matter, but he has definitely said that there are some things where it might not make sense to have software freedom.

However, with respect to the GamBoy itself, the issue is that when I buy a GameBoy, I am not able to inspect it, nor am I able to correct it if it is not not working properly. The GameBoy is not unethical in itself. It is forcing your customers to accept a "No user serviceable parts" license in terms of the software that is deemed unethical. Not being able to inspect the code to see what it is doing may have ramifications for the user -- perhaps not so obvious on a device that has no network, but it is where it starts.

One of the big problems with the Free Software movement, IMHO, is that it has been confused as being a software creation issue. It is not. It is 100% a consumer rights issue. One of the most important parts of free software is that if I did not give my software to you, then I have no responsibilities towards you at all. If I don't give you a binary, then I never have to give you source code. If you get the binary from somewhere else, I still don't have to give you source code -- the person who gave you the binary does.

This is about choosing a license that treats your customer well and about nothing else at all. For decades people have wittingly and unwittingly attempted to spin this as some frothing at the mouth religious issue. It is not. It is purely a consumer rights issue.

> It is forcing your customers to accept a "No user serviceable parts" license in terms of the software that is deemed unethical

Good point.

> Not being able to inspect the code to see what it is doing may have ramifications for the user -- perhaps not so obvious on a device that has no network, but it is where it starts.

Sure. This connects to data and privacy concerns.

> If I don't give you a binary, then I never have to give you source code.

True of the GPL, but not of the Affero GPL. Also, permissive Free Software licences like Apache impose no such requirements, but are still Free Software licences. Free Software isn't the same thing as copyleft. (Of course, if you distribute binaries but refuse to share the source, then what you are doing is no longer Free Software.)

> It is purely a consumer rights issue.

This makes for easy contrast with the Open Source movement, which is good, but I think it's a little misleading. As an analogy, the right-to-repair movement doesn't expect hardware companies to hand over their design documents, they're just seeking to end open hostility toward third-party repairs.

I fully appreciate Stallman's 4 Freedoms, including Freedom 1, the right to study software, but I'm not sure I'd quite call it a consumer rights matter. Payware proprietary software licenses prevent you from freely copying/distributing the software. Patents and design patents can do a similar thing with hardware. That's not really a consumer rights problem.

To put that another way, I can see the sense in treating Freedom 0 (freedom to run the program as you wish) and Freedom 1 (freedom to study how the program works) as consumer rights issues. I'm not convinced though that Freedom 2 (freedom to redistribute copies) and Freedom 3 (freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions) are consumer rights issues.

Rights of resale do not agree with your view.

Meaning what? Please give a full reply, not a bullet-point.

Freedom 2 and 3 are limitations of your right of resale applied to software. Actual applications differ by jurisdiction, of course, but my point is that, by limiting a consumer right, they become a consumer-rights issue by definition.

Right of resale does not make sense for a lot of software.

Games that are only meant to be played once are a good example and can be compared to a ticket to the cinema. It does not make sense to allow to resell those games.

On the other hand, you can resale your DVDs and Blurays just fine even after you watched the movie.

I don't think they are - you can always sell libre software. Whether anyone is willing to buy it is another question, but at no point is your right to resell abridged.

Just to be clear the Affero GPL only differs in that I would have to give you source code (edit: previously typed "software") if I supply a binary for you to use over a network. My point was really just that if I have not supplied a binary to you (and hence you are not my customer), then I don't need to do anything for you. This is frequently confused by people.

They are clearly consumer rights issues, to me. Whether you think they are important consumer rights issues is quite another matter ;-). Freedom 3, IMHO is definitely more important that Freedom 2. If you've managed to fix an issue, but are prevented from helping other people to fix the issue, I think it's problematic. As a consumer, I definitely value Freedom 2. Personally, I'm not sure I would consider it an ethical issue.

However, whether or not Freedom 2 is really an ethical issue, I think it's fairly straightforward to understand how people find Free software, as a whole, an ethical consumer rights issue. I'm not saying that everybody in the world is going to agree with the stance (and clearly many don't), but it's not much of a stretch to at least understand the position.

More edits for clarity. I should probably just go to sleep :-)

I think I see where you're coming from, at some point it becomes a question of semantics.

> the Affero GPL only differs in that I would have to give you source code (edit: previously typed "software") if I supply a binary for you to use over a network

That doesn't sound right. You don't have to distribute a binary for the Affero GPL to require you to release your source. From the FSF:

> The GNU Affero General Public License is a modified version of the ordinary GNU GPL version 3. It has one added requirement: if you run a modified program on a server and let other users communicate with it there, your server must also allow them to download the source code corresponding to the modified version running there.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.en.html

Yes, the "them" refers to the users. If you have users of a binary server, you must allow those users to download the source code. You do not need to allow anyone who is not a user to do so, though.

Edit (programmer needs sleep badly): Clearly it doesn't have to be a binary. It's any executable over a network. But you don't have to give the source cod to everyone, that's really my only point :-)

The point is that merely communicating with it (i.e. GET / HTTP/1.0) suffices to establish that requirement, even if you are not serving or providing a binary over the network as you previously said.

I agree with you. I didn't mean to imply that the binary must be served over the network -- merely that the server is used over the network. The point I was trying to convey is that you only have to provide the source code to the users of the server -- not everybody in the world.

> if I have not supplied a binary to you (and hence you are not my customer), then I don't need to do anything for you. This is frequently confused by people.

The confusion is on your end. Section 3 of GPLv2 requires you make the source available to any third party, not just your customer (and GPLv3's provisions are similar).

There is exactly one set of circumstances that permit you to say "no" to any and all non-customers, and it involves not limiting the initial distribution to just binaries. That is, iff you provide binaries together with the source to the customer who's giving out copies of the binaries themselves, then it is their responsibility and not yours, and only in that instance are you allowed to turn down third-party requests for source. This would also hinge on having a customer who would be fine giving out copies of the binaries they received from you in step 1 but for some reason wants not to give out copies of the source code that they received with it.

This seems consistent with the letter of the licence. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html

See also https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.en.htm...

I wouldn't have written my comment if it weren't.

Right, I was agreeing with you.

That's a good point and I'm glad you mentioned it. However, one set of circumstances is enough :-) If you do not wish to distribute the source code to other third parties, you do not need to, as long as you distribute it to your customers. I definitely could have described that better.

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