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Comment by jm3 | Hacker News Reader

His point was that people could use bare git without github, but many use Github, which isn't free according to three of the four freedoms RMS lists in the essay [1], no matter how much we hackers might love it. Lots of people love Excel, too, but that doesn't make it free software.

[1] Github:

    (0) freedom to run the program as you wish - YUP
    (1) freedom to study & change the source - NOPE
    (2) freedom to make and distribute exact copies - NOT SO MUCH
    (3) freedom to make and distribute copies of your modified versions - NO

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Sure, and I can eat Ramen noodles instead prime rib but I don't see how that's relevant. Github provides a service: hosting, a "community," etc.

This isn't the same kind tyranny as presumably binary distributed software. Right? That should be obvious, unless I am losing my mind.

In what respect do you have more control with a service than with a binary?

It's actually worse: you don't heave the freedom to use old versions when they push out an update, and you may lose access to it completely for any number of reasons, including 'we don't like you'. Granted, part of this lack of freedom is fair due to hosted services being different from just plain software, but the power over the users are there nonetheless.

Again, and I mean this in a nice way, how are your complaints remotely relevant? I'm really trying to understand...?

So if someone builds me a house and I pay them ... Is it immoral for them to have built the house without being some kind indentured servant to me for the rest of their lives doing whatever I want for whatever reason ...

That seems like a weird thing to say, but what you're saying is just as silly. Should I have access to unlimited resources from this builder and if they do not consent to my demands then they tyrants?

It's a service that I pay for and I have agreed to conditions of said service and I can choose to stop paying if I am not happy or I can sue if I feel the terms have not been met. I don't see the problem but I do see clearly the alternative is charity.

Someone else responded, a user jszz on this thread and said something crazy about Germany and how we need become a self-sufficient commune. I'm not sure what it meant and I'm not sure that anyone that holds this view knows what they mean. =(

In this analogy, they don't give you the blueprints for the house, and it's not available upon request. Wanna drill a hole in the wall to hang a picture? Better hire the same contractor or risk drilling into pipes or wires. Is the contractor no longer in the market? Well, tough luck!

Github provides an amazing service, but it's closed source SaaS.

But unlike many SaaS source-control sites, all your data on github is fairly easily available for bulk download via their APIs... It would of course be annoying to move to a different site, simply because any change in familiar tooling can be annoying, but it's quite doable to automatically migrate everything over.

I think github seems to have been fairly careful toeing the line, and I don't get the sense of being locked in the way I do with some other sites. They appear to be content to compete on the basis of usability and ease of collaboration, not lockin.

> how we need become a self-sufficient commune

Stallman always talks about community.

I don't really know anything about you, but I couldn't really understand the free software movement until I got that we are not advancing software as a community.

We are more like thousands of egotistical entities, the great majority in a "consumer" behavior, using software that someone (the "producer") writes and only he/she has the right and the capabilities to read and change.

In your house analogy, it was like someone (let's call her "Sarah") built a house for you, but in a way that you could not build a new room, fix the plumbing or even get your stuff out of it by yourself. Instead, you had to call Sarah, who would then decide if it was worth her time, and what should be the price.

You could just move to a new house with just your personal items and furnish it all over again, but as we inhabit bigger and bigger digital mansions, we can't escape the fate of always losing lots of things when we want to change. This situation may even coerce us to never change at all, even though there are so many fucking problems with this damn house.

I feel this is getting too metaphorical, so I'll end up here. When Stallman's point gets into your head, you see that this is just an instance of a more abstract class of problems with our societies (he has a wide range of controversial opinions outside software world). It really is about being part of a community.

Ummm why can't you just install your own git, wiki, etc from open source if you desire?

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