Hacker News Reader

Comment by rudiger | Hacker News Reader

You have to give the guy some credit; Stallman believes in the free software movement, fights for it, and refuses to compromise his rights or values.

View on HN

Richard Stallman is to software what Jean-Paul Sartres was to philosophy during his time and still now. JPS like RMS was living through his convictions and ideas to the point of refusing the Nobel prize because it would have tinted his motivations. RMS would do the same without any questions. Don't get them wrong: these people are not fanatic, they are just living and breathing a cause they started for a good reason. It takes courage not to give up to consumerism from corporates who try to milk everyone for the goal of making money and definitely not for bringing better living to our lives. Apple, Google, Facebook, they have a simple goal: $$$. When I see a guy talented and proficient like RMS defending his cause on a 9" OLPC, that takes guts.

I don't mean to belittle RMS's achievements, but as a general point, I don't think that simply adhering to conviction is courageous. It's the easy way out. It's the way that doesn't address the greys in reality, for the sake of simplicity of what you believe in. You are not tested in your decisions, because you have already refused to make any.

Socially speaking, I find it's easier to see gray. When you run into somebody in a social situation who knows you see him as heinously immoral, or maybe just a little bit of a sleazebag, there's tension. The tension is likely to get to him, causing him to needlessly bring up the issue in some contrived way. At that point, there's a magic phrase to completely banish the tension: "Well, yeah, shit's complicated." Suddenly you can be best friends.

I learned this trick when I was a strict vegetarian. I wasn't eager to confront people about their meat-eating, but when you don't eat meat, people pretty quickly jump to the conclusion that you think they're morally wrong to eat meat. The tension bothers them, so they bring it up in some awkward way. When my girlfriend's father did that (and later at one point her boss, at a company barbecue) I didn't want to get into the details, so I just said, "Well, it's a complicated issue." It was an honest statement, and I really had no idea exactly where I stood on eating meat, but I was so impressed with how completely it put them at ease and averted all conflict that I stored that memory away. Since then, I have used it many times dishonestly to avoid conflict with people who had power over me, my friends, or my family. Seeing gray is a "get out of conflict free" card.

I think the only time it takes bravery to see gray areas is when everybody else sees black and white. Otherwise, the "ability" to see gray helps you paper over disagreements and maintain valuable relationships with people.

Also, it usually isn't correct to think that a person avoids addressing gray areas by being black-and-white on a certain question. I am single, and for me, sex is an endless gray area. I have a conservative Christian friend who doesn't see any gray at all when it comes to premarital sex, but not because he's stupid or unthoughtful. He has to deal with gray areas in other places, such as divorce and state-mandated immunization against HPV. (His daughter will be immunized, and he thinks that's okay. He has friends who think it's not, and who are shocked by the fact that he doesn't resist in some way.) RMS sees gray areas in the use of non-free technology, and he makes concessions to reality. He's proud of his ability to use a completely free computer system, and he understands that it isn't practical for everybody, and he knows that even his success is limited to a very small portion of the technology that contributes to his existence. That's a gray area! I can understand where he's at. When I was a vegetarian, and now as a near-vegetarian, I know some people might think I'm being black and white to subsist on beans and potato salad at a catered barbecue lunch, but I think I'm being plenty "gray" by eating beans from a barbecue joint without asking why they taste so darned good. Everyone's thinking is gray someplace; the perception of "black-and-white thinking" is created by an observer focusing in on a certain place where he expects to find gray and is surprised to find black or white instead.

I seriously feel there should be a way in HN to save / bookmark comments that we like. Currently we can only save the main story thread. Now I have to add this comment so as to bookmark your comment.

How does that not count as a decision?

I agree, as a general point. When you are completely dedicated to an ideology, you don't have to worry about how it affects real, actual people. You don't have to morally weigh the consequences of your actions because you've already decided a priori which actions are right and which are wrong. Perhaps that's the difference between conviction and fanaticism.

> Adhering to conviction is the easy way out.

Sounds legit.

  > RMS would [refuse a Nobel] without any questions.

What's the difference between a Nobel and a MacArthur Genius grant?

http://tech.mit.edu/V110/N30/rms.30n.html

Perhaps a MacArthur Genius grant carries a little less baggage than a Nobel prize? A MacArthur Genius grant is a no strings attached "do any research or work you want" funded by people who didn't have the huge negative impact on world society that Nobel did.

I would gladly accept either honor :-)

They're both honors, yes, but incredibly different in the implementation. A MacArthur is much more of an abstract honor ('You have done some great work, possibly in some field that can't even be named because it is so unique, so here is some money that we hope you will use to continue doing great work.'). Many MacArthur recipients would never in their lifetimes be eligible for a Nobel. (On the other hand, many Nobel laureates would never receive a MacArthur either).

A Nobel prize, by contrast, is only given in certain fields, which already constrains the way that it is perceived. With a MacArthur, you're not necessarily competing against others in your field, because you oftentimes don't have a field (what you do is so highly specialized that nobody else really comes close). Furthermore, the prize is a political tool as much as anything else nowadays. (Looking at many of the recent Nobel Peace Prize recipients, I think anybody would agree to that.) The MacArthur has much less political identification, even compared to the prizes for biology/chemistry. It's nice to be able to attach it to your name when convenient as it gets a little bit more respect, but it's hard to interpret it in a negative way (or to see a recipient of a MacArthur as somehow compromising his/her views -- remember that Stallman has rather weak opinions on money per se when it comes to freedom; one can have a FLOSS product that nevertheless generates money).

(And as for the awards, I agree - at this point in my life I would probably be satisfied with either one!)

Don't get them wrong: these people are not fanatic, they are just living and breathing a cause they started for a good reason.

AKA Fanaticism. He's become an inflexible, computerized hermit. His dogmatic adherence to a demonstrably untenable principal of "freedom" has relegated him a permanent state of pre-1995 digital stasis.

He's not principled, he's dogmatic. At best, he's a cautionary tale demonstrating the state of the world if he had his way.

> At best, he's a cautionary tale demonstrating the state of the world if he had his way.

How do you know what the state of the world would have been if he had his way? All you know is his state in our current world, which is vastly different from a world with nothing but free software. You think hardware manufacturers wouldn't use free software if that was all that existed?

You have no idea what the world of technology would look like if we had nothing but free software. And neither do I, and neither does Richard Stallman. But we do suspect it would be better. At the very least, don't discount the possibility.

" he's a cautionary tale demonstrating the state of the world if he had his way."

Almost all of the things you consider modern in the computer world are built on top of his creations. OS X, google, facebook, HN, etc ... all built on the foundation RMS laid. Without his creations we would be closer to your idea of a "pre-1995 digital stasis"

While I'd agree that much of the foundations of modern computing were built upon some form of free software, I disagree that it's primarily Stallman's work. For one thing, OS X is based upon FreeBSD and Mach, neither of which are affiliated with the FSF. And I'd argue that the foundations of Google and Facebook are PHP, Apache, Python, etc. which are also not FSF.

Of course it's a difficult exercise to try to imagine how things would be different had the FSF not been created, or what influence it had upon the creation of software that wasn't directly affiliated with it. Obviously gcc has been one of the most prominent GNU toolsets featured in modern operating systems, although that appears to be changing too (Xcode replacing gcc with LLVM).

"I disagree that it's primarily Stallman's work. For one thing, OS X is based upon FreeBSD and Mach, neither of which are affiliated with the FSF. And I'd argue that the foundations of Google and Facebook are PHP, Apache, Python, etc. which are also not FSF."

OS X used all the major GNU tools, and was built with GCC. Without his creation you wouldn't have been able to build OS X.

The foundations of Google and Facebook are ultimately the GNU toolset. Everything you mentioned, php, apache, python, are built on top of the GNU tools.

It actually doesn't use all of the major GNU tools it uses very few of them.

GCC and the build chain is about all I can think of off the top of my head. Most of the userland is from FreeBSD.

And GCC and the build chain are quickly being replaced.

GCC is the most significant piece. So your point is that nearly all modern software is built on top of GNU, but some only use a small portion of the GNU stuff. I think you agree with my original point ;)

Yes but NeXTSTEP could have bought created a fully closed source compiler.

And how many of those things would be around if they weren't generating revenue for someone?

He's a living, breathing demonstration of the limits of free software. A world where progress slows to a crawl because the only people who have the time to write code are hobbyists and people who can get paid to lecture about how everything should be free.

That's the main issue I have with his ideas, they are thoroughly disconnected from reality. Not in a "Everyone should be nice to each other all the time way," but a "I'm going to ride my dragon to work," way.

Free software is a nice sentiment, but impotent. Nothing that has happened in the past 10-15 years in computers happens without a profit motive. Without a profit motive you may get a spreadsheet program, but no one motivated enough to get it distributed.

Free may get you on the path, but it doesn't get you very far down the road.

I think you are confusing free as in beer, and free as in speech. No one says you can't sell GPL software.

In fact, many people make quite a good living doing just that, or giving away the software and making money via imbedded means a la Firefox.

Not really. It's the cognitive dissonance of the Free Software Movement.

Software is either free or it's not free. It's either restricted or it's unrestricted. It's either proprietary or it's open.

Using hyper-capitalistic entities like Google and Facebook as a defense of the viability of free software is an interesting way to go. If anything, I'd argue they are almost perfect subversions of Free Software. Going a little deeper, a place like Y-Combinator is an even further subversion because, at it's core, it is a company that specifically exploits the profit motive of developers.

That aside, I think it's not particularly useful to argue that Stallman's contributions to the field are a vindication of his basic philosophy. Especially when those contributions are being used in a way that subverts it.

You're not going to get very far defining your terms in binary.

> And how many of those things would be around if they weren't generating revenue for someone?

I've visited the building where Red Hat has their Brazilian office (or, at least one of them). Nice place for a non-profit.

The argument it's not possible to make money and, at the same time, respect the rights and freedoms of users is an old one. We shouldn't be hearing it anymore.

> demonstrably untenable

Please, demonstrate away.

Don't forget that Sartre supported Stalin (and that Orwell despised him for that).

The more I live, the more I realize that old men without or with messed up sex lives are not to be trusted as gurus or guides in life.

It's the Pied Piper of Hamelin all over again.

Sartre's relevance or value depends on the relevance or value his arguments, not his age or affiliations or sex life. It happens that I think he was full of steam, but it wouldn't make him any better simply to be a woman, or young.

I think what I was trying to get at is that when I was younger, I looked up to certain bearded "wise men" and professors as archetypal "guides" or role models or whatever, but that was a mistake. Now that I am a bit older, I realize that it was wrong for me to look up to such men while ignoring others because by emulating the "wise man" directly I might have "skipped" a very important stage in a man's life: adulthood, when you're strong, aggressive, competitive, and otherwise awesome.

It is my philosophy that one should go through all stages in life in order, otherwise one will never be happy, though timing is not as important as order. I've seen old people get bitter and resentful when they see youth partying and going out -- because they themselves had never done so when they were young.

One of my favorite quotes from Nietzsche (though this guy also had a messed-up/nonexistent sex life): "Man is something to be surpassed, but only a buffoon thinks that man can be overleapt." Surpass but don't skip.

Does he have the same moral reservations for other devices in his life?

ie; what car does he use and own? All (modern) cars accept software updates which is his definition of a computer. Most modern televisions, dvd players, routers and even some microwaves/refrigerators can take firmware updates also.

Genuinely curious about the above - Not being a troll, just wondering how far the man really takes his beliefs. Does he stop at the most publicly noticeable devices ( laptop/cellphone ) or does he go all the way.

Does he have the same moral reservations for other devices in his life?

Yes, as far as I know.

ie; what car does he use and own? All (modern) cars accept software updates which is his definition of a computer.

I am pretty sure he doesn't drive, but this is what he had to say on the topic:

So, what about cars? Free cars would mean you are free to modify them and redistribute copies. Well, as for the modification, you are free to do that-lots of people modify and customize their cars. But when it comes to redistributing copies, the fact is we don’t have the technology to do it. There is no automatic car copier. Cars, today, are like books before the Xerox machine-the only feasible way to make copies was with a special factory. Copying your car is so hard that it makes little practical difference whether you are allowed to do this. Perhaps someday, through nanotechnology perhaps, a car copier will be developed. Then a Free Car Movement will be necessary.

Source: http://www.resonancepub.com/rstallman.htm

In fact, to equate cars and computers in this manner is to commit a Category Error. They simply don't share very many properties (save that they are both sold for money).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake

Don't forget modern cars are computers with wheels. Every time you drive (or ride) one, you bet your life on the correctness of the software running its various vital components.

Buggy software can cause the Lithium batteries under your seat to overheat and, maybe, catch fire. Perhaps violently.

Except that cars contain thousands of microchips and pieces of software that run things like your radio, ABS, and other major systems in the car.

My 1978 Land Rover Series III doesn't have a single computer! It's the mechanical equivalent of the GNU project.

Awesome you still have that on the road. Im guessing you live in the south? Biggest difference I always notice about cali vs northeast is the amount of old cars on the road.

You will always see a bevy of antiques on the road anywhere the roads aren't salted during the winter.

I'm in the UK!

In the south of the UK?

The middle at the moment. There's no point in owning anything with wheels larger than shirt buttons in the south.

The south of uk is the opposite of the south of the US.

I think the whole of the UK is opposite of the south of the US

Some of it is actually pretty close unfortunately.

For the person who downvoted me, have you ever lived in Slough?

By that token, asking RMS about cars in relation to his attitude towards computer would be akin to asking whether he lives in civilization or not, since everything from traffic lights to voting machines don't have open software at all. The category error is one of scale, not technical advancement.

Example of a category error (stolen from Ryle): you are handed both the left glove and the right glove, and you ask where the pair is. The pair is not a separate thing from the left glove and the right glove.

'Category error' does not mean a quantitative or scale difference at all.

Well... I still own (and use, once every couple weeks) a car that runs on ethanol and has an analog electronic injection. The radio is, most probably, its smartest part ;-)

It can be examined and changed, but it's not as easy as recompiling its engine.

I think if ever a car was to be copied, the technology to allow it would have it's roots in today's 3D printers. Something that emulates the star trek emulator in a terribly rudimentary way isn't all that far off from what we have now with these technologies.

My understanding of his position is that he does not consider firmware to be independent software. The arguments by which he came to be in favor of free software do not apply to firmware.

The reason that he promotes free software is because software is capable of being free, that is, it is logistically realistic that people freely copy, modify, and distribute it. From this, he extrapolates that there is a right to copy, modify, and distribute software. If would be physically capable of modifying the code, but is legally prevented, then that is a restriction on his rights.

Under his reasoning, it also does not apply to firmware. Because it is so tied to the underlying hardware, it's not really possible to copy or modify it in any useful way. It is certainly free, in the monetary sense, but there are no useful results of doing so. Therefore, closed software does not restrict your rights in a meaningful or non-trivial sense.

Note that this is just my interpretation of what I've read of him, and I don't follow the Free Software thing that closely so I could be mis-interpreting key points.

> Because it is so tied to the underlying hardware

Firmware has changed over the years, as have the devices we embed it into. Thee devices are much more complex and capable, sometimes, smarter than the computers they connect to. I have worked with devices that ran MS-DOS-like OSs and applications on 386-class processors with built-in printers running a real-time Unix-like OS on a 32-bit RISC processor.

Also, many different devices share common hardware and designs. Hundreds of routers and other various networking devices currently run OpenWRT firmware instead of their original software. Those little boxes are smarter than the first Unix machines I used and at least an order of magnitude smarter than the Burroughs B-500 mainframe that ran land taxes for a whole city on my first internship. All it lacks is a line printer and tape drives.

Isn't the whole point of his choosing that particular laptop that it has Free firmware as well? Similarly, he chooses to use gNewSense because it doesn't include any firmware blobs or similar. That suggests to me that firmware is also something he cares about - because if you run Free software on top of a non-Free firmware, it is possible that the firmware could undermine your freedom - for example, a firmware update might remove the ability for you to install other operating systems.

Does he have the same moral reservations for other devices in his life?

Do you have perfect moral consistency in everything you do? I don't. I'd guess that it's not even possible, let alone human nature.

Don't take this the wrong way but I personally feel that the GPL is not a free software license, I feel it's a community software license. BSD is a free software license, BSD code is truly yours, you want to create a proprietary fork you can do it, you want to create a GPLed fork you can do it, you want to expand the BSD code base you can do it. One thing I really love about BSD licensed code is that I feel like I own it, best of all this doesn't stop anyone else from feeling the same.

>you want to create a proprietary fork you can do it

Why should you be allowed to take away the Freedoms of others? The one thing the GPL restricts is your Freedom to restrict the Freedom of others. That's the foundation of copyleft: your rights stop where mine begin, and that includes being granted the four Freedoms of software as defined by the FSF.

In an ideal world, we would not need the GPL. Everyone would have realized already that it is in no one's prolonged interest to make proprietary software, and it would be frowned upon to do so. We would have implicit CC-BY (or -Zero) for everything and be done with it. No more copyright and licensing crap.

> Why should you be allowed to take away the Freedoms of others?

No one's freedom is being taken away when you create a proprietary fork. They are not forced to use your software, and the original is still intact. You do not automatically have a right to someone else's creation.

I don't mind paying for software, and I don't mind if they don't let me see their code the same way I don't mind when my local restaurant doesn't let me inspect their kitchen just because I want to.

>No one's freedom is being taken away when you create a proprietary fork.

You're free to make forks for your own personal usage and never give anyone the source. You don't even have to tell anyone that you did.

As soon as you share that software with anyone and refuse to hand over the source, and deny the recipient the right to modify and/or redistribute your program, you are taking away that person's Freedom.

>You do not automatically have a right to someone else's creation.

Then why do you insist on taking someone else's creation and basically make it your own by taking away the Freedoms granted to you by the original creator?

If find it highly unethical to want access to Free Software without having to actually contribute to it. It's demanding rights without wanting to have to deal with the responsibilities that come with those rights. It's selfish and greedy.

>I don't mind paying for software

Except money's got nothing to do with Free Software. It's explicitly stated that you're allowed to charge for distributing copies. I'm sick and tired of this "argument". It pops up every time Free Software is discussed here and elsewhere, and the only thing it proves is that the person bringing it up has not understood what Free Software is about in the first place.

> As soon as you share that software with anyone and refuse to hand over the source, and deny the recipient the right to modify and/or redistribute your program, you are taking away that person's Freedom.

I'm not taking away anyone's freedom, unless "freedom" has some definition I'm not aware of. You might be confusing "freedom" with "right", but I'm not taking away any right either unless I specifically violate the license. You do not automatically have the right to someone's work.

> Then why do you insist on taking someone else's creation and basically make it your own by taking away the Freedoms granted to you by the original creator?

It's not a freedom if the original creator forces me to release my code. Do you see how someone forcing me to do something isn't a freedom?

> If find it highly unethical to want access to Free Software without having to actually contribute to it. It's demanding rights without wanting to have to deal with the responsibilities that come with those rights. It's selfish and greedy.

No where did I say a proprietary fork wouldn't contribute back. Merely it shouldn't be forced to open up its codebase. You can make a proprietary fork of a project and still contribute back. I would like the freedom to choose which parts I contribute.

> Except money's got nothing to do with Free Software. It's explicitly stated that you're allowed to charge for distributing copies. I'm sick and tired of this "argument". It pops up every time Free Software is discussed here and elsewhere, and the only thing it proves is that the person bringing it up has not understood what Free Software is about in the first place.

You've missed the other part of that paragraph— the part having to do with Free Software.

So let me see if I have this straight. If I write some code and do not give it to you or anyone else, I have not taken anyone's freedom away.

However, if I give you a binary of the code, but do not give you source, I have taken your freedom away?

For that to make sense, there must be something you could do before I gave you the binary that you can no longer do. Please name what that thing is.

In cases like this, I prefer to equate Stallman's idea of freedom to Illich's idea of conviviality--a convivial empowers the user, and gives her the ability to mold it and use it as she sees fit. If you just distribute only a binary, you aren't distributing a convivial tool. When we lose control of the tools we use, ultimately we lose some of our freedom.

But, no one is forcing you to take and use my tools. You can take it or leave it – that's your choice. I grabbed this open source code and made some changes to it. I can give (or sell) you my modifications if you want. If you don't want, then you can reverse-engineer my implementation and use that (just like what GNU/Linux guys did). I'm not taking your freedom away – I'm giving you a choice.

..and let me guess, you don't mind the company doing the proprietary fork, sue/threaten the open source forking guys, use software patents as a weapon/threat against open source developers. and you don't mind getting someone else's work, and giving nothing back.

In short your freedom is an egoistic tactic where you take, use and even abuse but dont care. There are people like RMS who think otherwise; they want a world where everyone shares to everyone so that everyone benefits from all derivatives.

That's quite the extrapolation. When did I ever say I don't mind those things? I mind them very much. I also mind being forced to do something. I can make a proprietary fork and still give back; when are those two things mutually exclusive?

In your quest for "freedom", you're endorsing a license that forces people to do something. Isn't that the very antithesis of freedom?

> "that forces people to do something."

that "something" is crucial to the argument; GPL forces people to open their sources to ensure the freedom to use/distribute is passed further down the chain and to the future. Think of a BSD-licensed device driver; if a company forks it and makes it proprietary, develops a different but new device and sells the device with the new driver; Neither the users nor I; the original developer will be able to benefit from the derivative work and will end up with an unusable new printer in case the company ends support or does not solve a specific problem. I, as the developer and many users will end up in need to re-invent the wheel and improve the old copyleft driver.

So I the original developer, in case I give away my code with BSD license, end up allowing a permission to someone who does not give the same to everyone (and to me).

That seems like her freedom to you, but it is the freedom for one to end the freedom for many and to the original developer, in the long term, especially considering we all live in the same ecosystem finally. If BSD was ethically/not forceably used by every fork-er, that would be ultimately the same idea with copyleft.

Everytime I am giving away some code, I face this dilemma (I have MIT/BSD contributions too). I don't want to strengthen abusers, and non-contributors.

I appreciate your concern about "abusers" who use your code without giving back, but that's what I mean when I say GPL isn't advocating true freedom: They should have the freedom to not give back. What GPL does is force developers to release their code. I wouldn't consider that freedom, even if it's done in the name of protecting the ecosystem. "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" and all that.

> Think of a BSD-licensed device driver; if a company forks it and makes it proprietary, develops a different but new device and sells the device with the new driver; Neither the users nor I; the original developer will be able to benefit from the derivative work and will end up with an unusable new printer in case the company ends support or does not solve a specific problem.

How likely is that, though? If you release your code under GPL, they'll just write their own version and keep it proprietary. At least with BSD, you'll have the same base if you needed to rewrite their driver.

A BSD license benefits the market and end user, while a GPL license benefits other developers if they decide to use your code to begin with.

> Everytime I am giving away some code, I face this dilemma (I have MIT/BSD contributions too). I don't want to strengthen abusers, and non-contributors.

I feel the same way, but I'd rather have code people can use without worrying about the license versus forcing other developers to adhere to my personal belief system. Your reason for using GPL sounds like the reason some publishers use DRM: They do not want to give abusers and pirates easy access to their product. With DRM, it only ends up hurting legitimate users while pirates illegally remove it. With GPL, it's not as clear-cut, but I'd imagine there are many projects who have used GPL'd code without releasing their source, while shops who abide by the license but don't want to release their code are forced to reinvent the wheel.

Again, I do appreciate your concern regarding code abuse. I certainly wouldn't like it if a company swiped by code and sold it as their own, but the chance of that happening is slim. I'm much more worried about the small startup who wants to use my library but doesn't want to release their code.

>They should have the freedom to not give back. What GPL does is force developers to release their code.

They only have to release their code if they are using someone else's GPL licenced code. They are totally free not to use GPL licenced code, we can argue the semantics of 'freedom' until the cows come home but nobody is forced to use someone elses GPL licenced code.

>A BSD license benefits the market and end user,

It benefits the proprietary market, and if you want your code to be able to be used in proprietary projects then yes, BSD is indeed a great choice. I don't see how the end user is better served by BSD than GPL.

However, many developers pouring hundreds of hours into code they then release as open source do not have any intention of having that code end up in proprietary projects. They want the code to remain open so that they as end users will be able to recieve any enhacements done to their source code. And given the vast popularity of the GPL licence, particularly for open source applications then I'd say it's serving it's purpose.

And don't take me wrong, I think programmers releasing BSD licenced code are extremely generous, and I personally think BSD/MIT style licenced code is a better choice for single purpose library/framework/component style code where there's little risk of proprietary forks.

At the end of the day GPL is about the source code and any further enhancements to it being made available to recipients, and this is what has made it so popular. And while that means it can't be used by proprietary code projects, we have ample proof that it's a licence through which lots of companies chose to cooperatively develop open source code, likely due to the very fact that all distributors of that source code is legally bound to release any enhancements.

It's a little hard to argue that the GPL forces anyone to do anything.

It certainly places conditions on the use of code which has been released under it, but it doesn't take away the choice to not use that code.

There's no force. Just a requirement that if you do X, you also do Y. You do not have to do X if you would prefer to not have to do Y.

Where do people get the idea that if you GPL something it suddenly becomes immune from patent lawsuits?

But can you not at least understand that many people don't understand why those four Freedoms have to be assumed as given?

The disagreement is not about how to best make sure the four Freedoms are respected, it's not about implementation. It's about whether the Freedoms are Freedoms at all. That tends to get lost when all everyone always talks about is licenses (i.e. implementation details).

>But can you not at least understand that many people don't understand why those four Freedoms have to be assumed as given?

No, I can't. I fundamentally don't understand why you would keep source code secret, why you would deny me the right to change it or to redistribute copies. It's utterly incomprehensible to me.

On the contrary, I believe the burden of proof as to why we should deny people these Freedoms lies on the side of the advocates or proprietary software, and thus far I haven't seen any compelling argument.

You have to change perspective: Why don’t have I a right to keep my source code secret?

When I open an ice cream parlor you don’t have a right to know my recipe†. Why does that change with software?

Your argumentative work has to start there. You can’t just steamroll critics by saying “But the Freedoms are and should be Freedoms”.

—

† That right is of course limited: My right to keep the recipe secret is not absolute. I have to adhere to certain health and safety regulations, being able to keep the recipe secret does not override those regulations.

We can't really interact with ice cream on a higher level than would an animal, which is fine, that's all it's for. But software is a tool, and we learn from and improve our tools; that's what makes us human rather than mere consumers.

So substitute ice cream with hammers, axes, screwdrivers, pens, whatever. I don't see the point.

How do you take away anybody's freedoms without coercion?

The same argument could be said about slavery. You are told you have freedom, but you don't have the freedom to enslave other people. A society which admits slavery is more free in the sense you say. But, really, would you feel OK with it? I believe that society's well being is more important than absolute personal freedom. The GPL reflects that, so I support it, and we really shouldn't care about petty arguments about which one is "more free".

For everybody to have maximal rights, you have to prohibit taking away others' rights. The GPL just codifies this: we give you the right to use this however you like as long as you don't take that right away from others.

You can draw a parallel to physical goods: everybody has the right to do whatever they want with whatever they've bought. However, this does not translate to being able to sell that thing to somebody else while restricting what that person can do with it. You do not have the right to restrict what people do with things you used to own.

I think there are two possible assumptions (or axioms) here.

Suppose there's a work X licensed under the GPL. You've assumed that if I create a derivative work Y, then everyone else has an automatic right to Y. If I were to restrict Y, I'd be taking away this right, and so the GPL stops me from restricting it. In fact, it severely limits what I can do with my code, but enforces everyone else's freedom to use my code.

Let us assume the opposite: that a work does not belong to the public domain until its creator chooses to share it. Then any work X that has already been shared is fully protected (by any free software license). If I create a derivative work Y and keep it secret, I in no way limit people's use of X, so I have not violated any of their rights. Similarly, if I make a restrictive license on Y, I still haven't violated their rights. They never yet had a right to Y, only to X. In this case, the GPL is violating my rights to do as I choose with my personal work, Y.

So we have two opposing assumptions and two different conclusions: If you think a work you create immediately "belongs" to the public, then the GPL protects people's rights; if you think it "belongs" to its creator until shared, then the GPL violates people's rights.

I myself am in the second camp, so I think that the GPL does not technically qualify as a fully free software license. Perhaps the distinction could be phrased this way: I believe that a potential author of a piece of code should be able to do whatever they want with it, while the GPL is predicated upon the belief that all potential -users- of a piece of code should be able to do whatever they want with it.

But I don't think you can have both. You either have to allow restriction of the users' options (if the author so chooses), or you have to restrict the author's options.

It comes down to how to define "freedom" for free software. RMS's is a very pragmatic (and in my opinion counterintuitive) definition: it just means that no one can conceal the source code. It's counterintuitive to me, because I would consider the maximum freedom being akin to public domain software: anyone would be able to do literally whatever they want with the software, including redistributing it without distributing the source code.

But as soon as you redistribute it without the source, the people who get that copy don't have the same rights. This is like the old saying: "your right to swing a fist ends at my jaw"; rights should not give you the power to take away others' rights.

I suppose it depends on whether you think there is an inherent right to access the source code of every software you use. The whole positive vs. negative rights issue comes into play big time.

They're both free, just with different goals. The GPL gives freedom to the user of the software, the BSD license gives freedom to the developer of the software.

like the ultimate freedom Apple enjoys, sucking BSD licensed code freely, giving little back (except when enforced in case of khtml/webkit) and using software patents against others using open source software.

That's a very interesting reinterpretation you have there which happens to tragically overlap little with truth. Seriously, claiming that they "give little back (except when enforced)" is just plain untrue. You can go download PureDarwin right now if you want to see what is probably the bulk of their "BSD licensed code". Or go look at Apple's open-source page[1] for a list of highly not-[L]GPL projects for which Apple's modifications are available.

Like their sizable contributions to LLVM, which is NCSA-licensed. Or their whole-cloth release of Darwin under the APSL (a license that even the FSF agrees fits their definition of 'free'). Or their release of Bonjour (wholly in-house development, if I'm not mistaken) under the Apache license.

[1] - http://www.apple.com/opensource/

He has to compromise at some point. He can refuse to stick non-free software on his computer, but he can't refuse to benefit from the use of non-free software in the computers of the cars and planes that he uses for travel, and he can't refuse the non-free software that was used in the manufacture of many of the products he uses every day.

First, his main argument is that the user of software should have the right to inspect and modify that software. So just benefiting indirectly from proprietary software does not seem a contradiction: his--and the user's--freedoms are not infringed by using things that may have been manufactured with proprietary software.

Secondly, he does not believe that certain classes of software (like in your microwave) need to be free because they are basically part of the hardware. I imagine that if he owns a car, it only has low-level control software for the engine which is basically the same but not, say, a proprietary GPS system.

In planes it is again not an issue: he doesn't own the plane, so even if it had fully free software he would not benefit. I imagine if he ever did get a plane, he would want one with free software, but that isn't particularly pertinent since he will never buy a plane.

So the things you pointed out are not infringements of his rights--they're infringements of the rights of the manufacturer or the plane company. Stallman tries to persuade people like that to stand up for their rights, but that is all he does.

So, what's your point? That he shouldn't fight for free software because it's difficult? Imagine the world in the 80's, when there wasn't a free as in freedom OS; rms knows about compromise when there are no alternatives, he just doesn't want a non-free OS in a non-free computer when there are free alternatives. We usually call it coherence.

The claim: "Refuses to compromise"

My response: "Is forced to compromise in the following cases"

I don't know how you managed to form your bizarre interpretation of what I said. I like the guy. I admire his ideals and approach and agree with his goals.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude, but it's not really much of a point to say "He doesn't refuse when there aren't viable alternatives". It's the same situation he was in the 80's with OS's, there wasn't a free OS for his computer, so he used a non-free one to code, a temporal compromise. When there's an alternative, even a very impractical one, he goes with that even though he could choose the other. So, "Refuses to compromise" is accurate, he refuses whenever he can.

My point is that non-free software is pervasive and impossible to avoid, even for people like RMS. That is all.

Which by and large hurts his position if that is to be held up as what it takes to follow the free software movement.

Quite the contrary. It shows that something is severely wrong and in dire need of improvement if you need to go to those lengths to be able to run entirely on Free Software. Someone who wants to run only Free Software should not, by any means, have to rely on a 9" netbook from a single, Chinese manufacturer. It should be easy to buy hardware that is open, just as much as it should be a non-issue to run Free Software. Actually, it should always be the preferred solution.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com