Hacker News Reader

Comment by fay59 | Hacker News Reader

This definitely riled up a lot of people. The comments point out many flaws, but I’m not seeing rebuttals to what I find to be the core arguments:

* The overlap between what the FSF thinks a majority of users want and what they actually want is minuscule * The FSF failed to inspire new leaders * The FSF, a political foundation, has no governance agenda * The FSF missed the boat on a plurality of software revolutions, causing free software to capture only a small portion of the explosive growth of all FLOSS software

Is any of this incorrect?

View on HN

Right or wrong, all these are completely irrelevant. FSF is not a government, they don't HAVE to serve the majority of peoples want. FSF is not a corporation that has to remain relevant for the benefit of it's shareholders. FSF stands for whatever FSF stands for and whoever agrees can sign up. If one disagrees they are welcome to move on with their lives (or kinrly argue about what would be better). What we see here is an attempt to hold FSF accountable to some arbitary standards in order to paint them inadequate, allowing us to conclude they are irrelevant. This is a fallacy. However, this attempt goes even further. So what if they are irrelevant? So what if they have stagnated? What if they are out of touch? What's the harm to society? Why does the author need to compile a bunch of false and childish arguments to put them down?

You're right that in the end, the FSF does not have to produce anything of value. However, that is literally the rock bottom of standards to hold an incorporated entity that receives donations.

The problem with the FSF being stagnant and useless is that it still governs a (decreasing) share of software that many people rely on and hamper progress on these projects.

A more fitting wording of the first point might be "The overlap between (the FSF-backed) software respecting user rights and interests and what users actually want to use in reality is minuscule."

The issue is not that the FSF failed, more that most people simply don't care enough. Similar to privacy, which in the end leads to revelations like Snowden's leaks or the Equifax data breach to be effectively shrugged off by most. Not because it's unimportant, but because in the real world it's very low on the average person's worries. Many non-tech people still struggle with sending emails or telling the difference between SMS and WhatsApp messages; issues that Stallman talks about are simply not relatable for many despite their relevance.

Which, in my opinion, makes the further development of FLOSS(or however you want to call it) software only more important. So that the typical user has a point of comparison and knows what can and should be expected from software products. That weird bugs, intransparent behaviour and dark patterns are not supposed to be the norm.

To say that the FSF failing is different from people not caring enough, you have to define the goals of the FSF in a way that it can succeed regardless of whether people care about it or not. I don't think that this is possible, and therefore the FSF failing is indistinguishable from people not caring enough.

Even people who aren't very good with email or don't understand the difference between WhatsApp and SMS can do Zoom/FaceTime calls or use E2E encrypted messaging platforms while there is no sanctioned FSF platform to do either. Maybe the public would be concerned with the FSF's ideals would the FSF do the smallest modicum of effort to keep up with the public's use of software.

And, of course, the FSF failing is not an indication that the open source movement failed. Open source arguably won. However, free software is currently grasping at the threads of relevance.

Yeah that's what i thought, the article is confusing freedom with safety.

So what if the majority of their users want safety instead of freedom, why don't they make their own foundation? Should Toyota start making chocolate because their users like chocolate?

> The FSF failed to inspire new leaders

I thought this has to do more with the sociology of software developers. They are rich now, most of them immigrants with different ambitions, they are going for fast money and early retirement. Easy money makes it hard to grow the idealist in them

Also i think the author has a limited view of freedom. Most people don't have a use for their freedoms, that's true and human reality. But those marginal, extreme freedoms should be available to the few who will use them to expand the human frontier.

When HN goes ad hominem I usually bookmark whatever HN got riled up about to read later. It's a sign that there's something interesting to think about ;)

That's a good heuristic, but in this case the article is garbage and the author a troll.

There is a valid, honest conversation to be had about FSF, free software, and RMS, but this article isn't it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com