Open Source 'Needs To Ignore' Stallman, says GNU Maintainer
news.efytimes.com
news.efytimes.com
"this is possibly one of the biggest war that as been witnessed ... Paolo Bonzin, who has maintained the Free Software Foundation's GNU grep and GNU sed, has quit from his role." This is just the warmup. It's the beginning of the article, and has a few funny typos to get your juices flowing. My favorite part, is there's just something about the idea of "the biggest war witnessed" being kicked off by these unassuming command line regex utilities that gave me a little thrill.
Two paragraphs later, the article starts the real hit parade. "Bonzini put it bluntly saying, 'To put it somewhat bluntly, ...'" In my writing, I've sometimes found it difficult to properly introduce a quote. I never realized that I could simply repeat the quoted person verbatim. This is a brilliant technique.
Next paragraph, the brilliance continues: "it would be impossible to convince a diverse group such as the group of GNU maintainers to agree on coding standards for C. He wrote in his post, 'It is likely not possible to convince a diverse group such as the group of GNU maintainers to agree on coding standards for C++, for example...'"
The author was so enamored with this technique that he repeated it at the end of the very same quote. "'all Stallman had to offer on the topic was "We still prefer C to C++, because C++ is so ugly" (sic). As a result of this, the GNU coding standards have not seen any update in years and are entirely obsolete.” Bonzini blamed that it was Stallman's attitude because of which GNU coding standards have not been updated in years and were entirely obsolete."
I also love the last line of the article. "Well, if the trend continues, it can be a trouble for Stallman and his FSF ..." It rather puts me in mind of a young child, having spoken at unaccustomed length and exhausted their material, who shrugs and ends with, "well, they were in big trouble."
This article was a great Christmas present. Thanks, Hacker News!
I am prepared to acknowledge that he might well be right in his positions on freedom, but he comes across as a lunatic in most of his talks. I have a problem with this; if what he's saying is important, could we not advance a more charismatic, tactful and effective ambassador?
Either way we already have a community of people sharing similar values of open source - I don't think we need a hierarchical leader/follower structure.
Don't mistake consistency for fanaticism. In crypto software, for example, you can't be "a little proprietary" and be trusted. Sometimes there are no shades of grey.
I, like you, happen to not believe that hypothesis, but I think you can see why your utilitarian logic may not be persuasive.
What about source code that contains private data - do I have the right to see that too? What if the code contains access key to your bank account and you never intended for anybody but you to see it - do I have the right to see that? What if you gave that code to your family (i.e. "distributed" it) - do I get the right to see it now?
I think the whole concept of declaring it to be "human right" is misguided, and, even more, harmful for actual human rights - as it gives one the impression that "human rights" is something like "if I want something really bad, I must have it". Human rights is a very different concept, and saying that demanding from Microsoft to reveal their trade secrets is like fighting slavery is, IMHO, a bit offensive to people that suffered and fought the actual slavery. We may say Microsoft keeping the source secret makes their product worse but it's not the same as slavery, not by a long shot.
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
"do I have the right to see all the source code in the world?" No, you can't force someone to show you their software. Their list of freedoms is only triggered when you legally receive a copy of the software, or hardware which includes the software.
"What about source code that contains private data?" - Since no one is forced to give you the source code, then this doesn't apply. If they gave you the private data voluntarily, then it's not really that private, is it? If the "private data" is a required decryption key, then you must be provided that information. If the private data is a data file which is not part of the program, then it's not covered.
"What if you gave that code to your family" - Nope. It's triggered when you receive the software, not when someone else receives it.
"demanding from Microsoft to reveal their trade secrets is like fighting slavery is, IMHO, a bit offensive to people that suffered and fought the actual slavery" - Oh, I agree. I think I'm being overly blunt in describing GNU's view that way. I do it to get across the view that they view it as a moral obligation, which is different than the Open Source view that it's an economic advantage.
That's why "makes their product worse" doesn't cut it for GNU. They don't care if software is crappy or not, they only care that it's free ... and 'non-crappy' is only important when it advances the cause of freedom.
That is a net negative for free software, since it diminishes my desire to support free software, and instead stand behind the weaker banner of open source.