Free & Proprietary
mattmaroon.com
mattmaroon.com
I went to HOPE 2006 in NYC a few years ago, and ran into him while heading to a lecture about Asterix PBX use. As a huge admirer of GNU tools and the GNU/Linux operating system in particular, it was thrilling to finally get to meet one my heroes. For about a few seconds.
I shook his hand and somewhat shyly asked him to sign one of the few paper-based items I had in my bag, a copy of (surprise surprise!) PG's "ANSI Common Lisp". He refused outright, claiming it was not "free" in its licensing and printing.
I shit you not. The man is that much of an asshole.
I just goggled at him for a moment, and wandered away in a daze.
Don't get me wrong, I love his ideas. Information wants to be free. But to be so mindlessly pedantic about little things like what he is signing detracts from his cause.
Curiouser and curiouser.
I wonder if the problem is that just saying people can do whatever they want with code seems to him too unrestrictive.
I doubt it. Both the MIT and BSD licenses are listed as 'free software' licenses on the FSF website: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/
And as pg mentioned, the fact that the code is free for (implicitly) any use whatsoever means that the code could be used in proprietary software without issue, and thus the code isn't free.
Was RMS opposed to the book, the code, or both? I suspect both, and since it appears that he quickly recognized the book, he had probably already contemplated his opposition to it at some prior time.
His behavior in this situation surely would strike most as odd, but he seems to just be living by his ideals as much as possible. You may not see non-free reference books or non-free software as unethical, but he does, and wants no positive connection with it.
On a different note: there's is no reason to call him names for not signing ACL, he just takes a principled stand. Why should he sign it anyway? If I had a copy of ACL (yes, I am poor) I wouldn't want anybody but pg to sign it.
"GNU Press publishes ...books on computer science using freely distributable licenses... We believe the reader should be free to copy and redistribute it, just like our software".
I do not know what right readers have to distribute ACL, but if it is in anyway restricted then I would guess that is what he means.
(The movie is available on the NetFlix WatchNow service...ironically only if you run windows+IE+MediaPlayer.)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409
or as avi: http://vp.video.google.com/videodownload?version=0&secur...
It's funny, but I thought Stallman was portrayed very well in that movie. I found final scene in which he describes what "the whole GNU project" is in one sentence especially touching - it's my favorite in the film.
Very symbolic and representative of the GNU and Linux relationship.
(starts at 1:11:45)
But maybe that's because I've never worked on anything as hard as Stallman did on GNU. Still, it seems impolite.
Even if you like the FSF stances (and I have no problem with that), I think it's hard to argue that their idea of "free" is really, truly free as Stallman likes to pontificate.
I shit you not. The man is that much of an asshole.
After years of stories about interactions just like the one you described, interviews, and countless mailing-list flame fests, this should be perfectly obvious to anyone.
Let anyone think I'm picking on Stallman because of personality differences, here's another: Theo de Raadt. He is most definitely an asshole - but at least he's consistent, focused, and not judgmental.
The FSF licenses cause more proprietary code to come into existence (duplication at a great cost to society) when companies cannot integrate GPL products with their proprietary licensed software. So companies write their proprietary version of the component and no one can see the source, or the source of their subcomponents.
The point of the licenses is different. BSD and MIT gives you the freedom to take away other people's freedoms using the code. FSF does not.
I don't think it's quite obvious which of these is "truer to the idea of 'free'", which is a pretty vague phrase. Where you are coming from makes sense, but one could also think of it as MIT and BSD giving a certain user more freedom, and FSF protecting all user's freedom better.
I agree about the different purposes, but I'd also point out that usually the more "terms and conditions" the less likely what you're getting is really free. To remove vagueness regarding freedom, Webster's definition:
1: the quality or state of being free: as a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b: liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence c: the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous <freedom from care> d: ease, facility <spoke the language with freedom> e: the quality of being frank, open, or outspoken <answered with freedom> f: improper familiarity g: boldness of conception or execution h: unrestricted use
At best the FSF license can be seen as an understandable restriction on freedom to preserve open source software by requiring reciprocation. To me there is no question that MIT and BSD licenses are more free. FSF style licenses made more sense when open source seemed like it might be a delicate beast at the mercy of proprietary forces, I think its clear now just how robust open source software is.
I don't think that's necessarily true. Imagine an open source system that's fairly popular, but with just a few developers. ProprietaryCo hires them all up, and users realize that if they want improved versions of said project, they're going to have to pay, or find some new developers. Far fetched? Not really, it's pretty similar to what Sun Microsystems did.
So, there is some risk to the community. What 'protects' BSD licensed projects best is to have a strong, and diverse development community, which is one of the things that the Apache Software Foundation tries to encourage.
As to how often that kind of thing happens, it's hard to say. BSD/Sun is a big, obvious case. It would be interesting to get statistics on others.
My general strategy is to use BSD style licensing when my code might be included in someone else's project (Hecl), and GPL if it's a "finished product" kind of thing.
From Stallamn's view, I'm pretty sure you're not taking anything away by restricting the creation of more proprietary software. Proprietary software pretty much doesn't exist for him.
To understand his point, you really have to apply all of the moral frames relating to 'freedom' to software licensing. In that view, to license software without distributing source is akin to licensing software with a clause to give up your first born.
This sort of doctrinaire newspeak is what gives GPL advocates the appearance of a cult. Developers who incorporate some open source code in their app and don't release it aren't taking away anyone's freedoms.
The upside to GPL is that any link N has the same rights to use and modify N-1 as 2 had on 1, with the downside being that N has limited rights on itself. BSD grants maximum control to each link, with the downside being that any given link may choose not to allow any links to be added below it.
Let's not throw around names... it's not out of comprehension to think of knowing what your computer is running as a fundamental right.
Developers who incorporate some open source code in their app and don't release it aren't taking away anyone's freedoms.
That's precisely it. I'm not asking you to agree with the FSF view, but to understand it. In the view of the GPL, distributing proprietary software is absolutely taking away people's rights of knowing what's running on their machine, modifying what they're running, etc.
Fundamental rights aren't always obvious, and whether or not this view will catch on is not something I pretend to know. I think this will be an open question for dozens, if not hundreds of years to come.
I believe FSF code, as in GPL is free. There are four freedoms that come with it. The only restriction is that one can't deny others the same freedoms. You're also free not to use it.
I find it interesting that so many criticize RMS for his character and style. I find myself very tolerant of people who are very talented programmers. I think RMS is a pretty decent programmer. Emacs, GCC, ... have added a lot of value over the years.
Ah, good. Progress. We agree that what FSF calls "free", and what RMS so piously lectures us all about, has at least one substantive restriction. My definition of "free" (as in speech, as the Righteous and Holy FSF puts it) includes no substantive restrictions.
I think the Stallman's definition of "free" basically amounts to extortion on some level. I also refer back to my point about puerile bitterness.
As a side note, when you feel the need to enumerate the freedoms, then the implication is that there are lots of non-freedoms.
Programs are a form of mathematics. Freely (as in freedom) disseminating them is a good thing, it fosters creativity and synergy.
Enumerations are also a good thing, they help us remember and clarify contracts. The bill of rights is a good example. You have freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, to be secure in your letters, etc.. Notice that implicit in some of these is that you cannot deny others these rights.
I've noticed many are content to dismiss RMS because of his character. I've felt that way some in the past also but I would urge you to read some of his essays and even more so the works of Lessig, Moglen, and others in this area.
Finally a voice of reason.
The GPL is more restrictive than that. If one puts code online and says "do whatever you want with it," everyone has the same freedom to use it. No one can deny anyone else the freedom to use it, short of blocking access to the server.
I like to think that what folks refer to as its' "viral" nature is really the preservation of freedom. It strikes me that this license more than any other protects the rights of programmers and enables them to earn a living. This might seem counterintuitive, and it certainly is counter to the propaganda that often spread about communism and programmers earning a living, but much of that stems from the way corporations are structured as legal entities.
To put it another way, the GPL is definitively the license that will apply to AI entities in the future, who, I suspect, will be their own copyright owners. ;)
Sounds like the plot from http://www.accelerando.org/_static/accelerando.html
The FSF licenses aren't about giving individuals more freedom, but about ensuring more freedom for everyone. Think of each time someone accepts a license as an edge in a graph - with his licenses, Stallman doesn't want to just add more edges to the graph, he wants to change the shape of the graph all together.
Also, if he wasn't such a pedant from the start we'd be MUCH worse off.
Easy - if he had pushed Microsoft to release an open standard instead of .doc, .xls, et cetra, he would have done better for the world at large by leaving a competitive market for office products.
Another - if he had insisted IE6 were standards-compliant and open source, he could have saved companies in web development a whole lot of time and money, and done a lot more good for the world at large.
In the long run, this would also have been great for MS shareholders, as the short-term gains of dominating the office and web browser markets are offset by the long-term damage to the MS brand.
That would be a great argument for legally enforcing (certain) software be F/OSS...
Yes, although there's a footnote there: in winner take all markets, the externalities can drive people to feel 'forced' into choices. You can buy a car from whoever you want, pretty much - they're all interchangeable. But try living in the corporate world without .doc. It is finally starting to become feasible, but it's a tough, uphill battle.
That makes people frustrated.
Today, things are different. There are many wonderful office suites. But it's no good saying that we should restructure the pie as if office suites were new instead of old--Office is ahead because OO and iWork and whoever else were years late to the game. If they continue to be superior, they'll gain market share in spite of MS's best efforts.
> If they continue to be superior, they'll gain market share in spite of MS's best efforts.
The point of big network externalities is that that doesn't necessarily happen. Qwerty and Betamax being cited (albeit disputed) examples - I'm sure there are other good ones.
One rather large supporting argument the author overlooked: Stallman/FSF have appeared to largely reverse their stance on open standards; his/their views on OOXML and C# are incomprehensible to me. We could argue the technical advantages of ODF vs. OOXML all day, but the total sum of the philosophical difference between the two is zero.
Does anyone have a contact email for mattmarroon.com? There's an infected iframe distributing malware in his Twitter Revisited post but I can't find a way to get in touch with him (no published emails and his whois is protected).
Matt, if you're listening: do you pirate a lot of software? (I don't mean this as an accusation; I'm genuinely curious. If I had to guess, I'd guess no, but who knows? (Uh, you do). I also realize that there's a reasonably good chance that you won't want to answer "Yes, I pirate all of Adobe's products," or whatever, in public, even if it's true.)
Most people I know don't mind pirating software and don't think about DRM until it stops them from doing what they want. I think that's one reason that free software has, in many cases, failed to beat proprietary software.
Microsoft in my view completely stifled any innovation for ages with their monopoly and unethical business practices. We went backwards in some cases. If it weren't for microsoft I think a lot more innovation would have happened in computing.
Thankfully that's all changed now.
Matt, I think there is some merit to your argument but you fail to take into account the fact that many of the applications you think are superior also have long histories relative to their relatively unencumbered counterparts.
If I look for new proprietary software, I don't tend to see many examples that are as superior to open source software in the same way I might say Microsoft Office is to Open Office. More often I tend to see proprietary software left in the dust as in the case of Apache vs IIS unless I look for niches.
Can you cite any good examples of well-known new proprietary software that is clearly superior then their open source alternatives?
Note I say "open source" and not "free".
Also, if GIMP can't catch up in 14 years, will it ever? That's basically infinity in the software industry.
We all know initial conditions are very important. Once a community adapts to the rules of a given open source or proprietary application it rarely decides to change even when the alternative may be superior in some way.
Also, if GIMP can't catch up in 14 years, will it ever? That's basically infinity in the software industry.
GIMP is already superior to Photoshop in at least one significant way: you can give copies of it to your family, friends, students or whoever without breaking any laws. Of course if you're a design pro who uses Photoshop because it has features GIMP lacks then that may not matter to you.
However both those topics are besides the point. My main issue with your essay lies in the statement
It’s obvious that up to this point, proprietary software has created a vibrant ecosystem and immense profits that probably would not have existed were all software open source.
That's not at all obvious. What is obvious to me is that some proprietary companies have made obscene profits by preventing fair competition to keep prices artificially high and stop people from switching to lower cost or free alternatives.
Vendor lock-in is not new, and not exclusive to software by any means. It's an ages old tactic, and one that's been considered fair game forever. A corporation out to make profits is foolish to not use it where possible.
You can't ever stop someone from switching to cheaper or free alternatives. You can only make your product so good (if only through legacy support) that the cost of switching is higher than the cost of buying your product. This, again, is neither new nor unfair.
Abusing near-monopolies (which MS did) is unfair, but has nothing to do with proprietary vs. free. It's perfectly possible to have proprietary software without that. It's like the difference between drinking sensibly and drinking and driving.
Still, I'm a little confused that you see no relationship between monopolies and licensing given that MS was convicted of abusing its monopoly to dictate licensing terms to OEMs.
I just don't think it's fair to blame proprietary software for Microsoft's sins.
I would argue that open source technology has been a much more "vibrant ecosystem", and that open source software is creating a much more "significant shift in technology" than proprietary software is.
I don't think it's reasonable to say anything about what the world would be like "if all software were open source", or how that would happen.
America's earlier robber barons showed similar changes of heart. It seems incredibly misguided to frame an abusive monopoly as a triumph of laissez faire economics. Adam Smith would not approve.
Moreover I didn't read the RMS as attacking the foundation.
I was put off by the tone of many of the blogs pieces about the RMS article. I've never seen RMS as "bitter" about MS. I think it was good timing on his part during this little love fest at Gates' retirement to point out that MS has not done much for computing science. RMS has given programmers a lot, much of it for free (as in beer and as in freedom). The only thing he seemed to be bitter about is the Linux versus Gnu/Linux thing.
I suppose this reflects my age, I felt the same way about the Arc bashing when it was released. RMS walks the talk, say what you want about him but you know where he stands. I wish we all had a similar regard for the US constitution.
But at home I use some proprietary technologies too. Windows and OSX can be found on the computers there, because they’re still both much more user-friendly than the free alternatives for everyday use, and they have a far more vibrant ecosystem of developers and applications."
Obviously you don't appreciate the benefits as much as anyone.
Stallman and Gates stand at two ends of a particular spectrum. The fundamental question is about what rights the users of a piece of software should have. On Gate's end the belief is that the users' right is simply to use the software. Stallman's belief is that the users' right is to use, redistribute, and modify that software. Modern copyright law falls in line with the proprietary side. The GPL is a hack leveraging that same law to guarantee that the users of software governed by it, or software derived from the same, retain the rights of use, distribution, and modification so long as they also abide by the GPL under which they recieved that software. The key point of the GPL is that it restricts recipients of the software from distributing derived works under licenses which restrict the rights of the users more than does the GPL. That is the key point of contention. It is a recursive conditional grant of license dependent upon propagating those rights with derived works.
The key point of proprietary software is that the copyright holder retains the exclusive rights of distribution and creation of derivative works. Copyright law grants broad powers to the author to restrict recipients of software from redistributing it or deriving new software from it. That's the mechanism by which copyright law operates. The intention of the law is to create a framework which encourages the creation of new works by securing those exclusive rights to the author. That exclusivity is not a natural right, but is a statutory one granted by Congress under the powers given it in the Constitution. Developers of proprietary software generally use those rights to ensure that they recieve payment in exchange for the use of the software. Developers of software released under the GPL use those exclusive rights to ensure that all future users of their software retain those same rights.
Disagreement over what the rights of the author are and what are the rights of the user generates the friction on this Gates <-> Stallman continuum. Most people fall somewhere in-between those two extremes. Stallman believes that it is a moral imperative to ensure that all users everywhere retain what he sees as fundamental rights. Gates believes that it is imperative that the authors retain the power to define what rights they grant to the users.
Is Stallman extreme? Absolutely. Is Gates extreme? Absolutely. But both of them are self-consistent and stand as useful measuring sticks by which to measure different approaches to copyright. Stallman may be an ass, but he's an extremely principled one. Gates may be a robber baron, but he exemplifies the power which is wielded via exclusive copyrights, and he stands to do a great amount of good in his philanthropical efforts. Both of them are talented technical minds who have pursued their goals passionately. Both of them have had a huge impact on the modern software landscape. Which of them is right? Personally I think that one needs to measure the results of their efforts to decide. And that's a very subjective and touchy subject which I won't go into here. You'll have to decide for yourself what approach is right for you as a developer of software. I think it's great that the choice is there to make.
Please note that all I'm writing about now is philosophy. I'm not going to touch practical implications yet.
If I have made a factual error, please respond and correct me.
Communism is too loaded of a word, but I think for our purposes "democratic socialism" is a suitable replacement. Democratic Socialism, successfully practiced throughout the world, and very compatible with the goals of many progressive Democrats in the US.
I will contrast Democratic Socialism with Market Liberalism. Market Liberalism is the idea that markets should be unrestricted and do not need to be regulated because they regulate themselves. However there seems to be a consensus among economists that this rosy rhetoric is just not true. The failure of this model may ultimately make the failure of European Communism look like child's play.
I think if I had to define the primary difference between Market Liberalism and Democratic Socialism it would the idea that society should be able guide and shape itself intentionally. This guidance is accomplished by making the structure of society be programmable by the people (instead of the structure being determined by blind market forces).
Market Liberals want to put the future in the hands of complex systems that are not directly related to any human values or guidance. That is the primary difference I think.
Their childish definition of freedom as being able to "do whatever you want" is simply a fairy tale. Freedom has more to with defining the constraints of government, via democratic process, such that the citizenry are maximally empowered, and minimally hampered.
The Market Liberals have no concept of the citizen or duty to cultivate community, the group-level. They only believe in the individual, the selfish gene/meme. They believe in a grossly misguided notion that markets optimize and automatically generate solutions, so that we don't need to choose our own direction as a society. It doesn't take a PhD economist to know how wrong this is. Computer scientists should also know how wrong the market liberalist model is-- optimization does not come for free! At least not in any reasonable amount of time. And as far as government is concerned there is such a thing as "too late".
So, Democratic Socialism does have a relationship to FOSS, though not a necessary one. FOSS shares a philosophy that works well with notions ranging from cooperativist economies (Libertarian Socialism) to Marxism, to plain old vanilla regulated capitalism. The philosophy of government that it clashes with is this permissive "let the market be free" philosophy, in which people can "do whatever they want". The reality of that system is not freedom for people but oppression of the weak by the strong, the gated fortress lifestyle, and gridlock on innovation due to the lower bandwidth of information exchange.
He's not ignoring the great free software, he's pointing out that only using free software means that you give up using proprietary software in the cases where it is better.
I do have one blog on MT and one on Wordpress, and to be honest I'm not sure which I prefer. It's a close call either way. Given what I've heard of Wordpress's scalability issues, I think I'd use MT if I were running a blog with the expectation of large traffic numbers.