Who appointed Stallman God? In his own way he is just as bad as Bill Gates, for they are both trying to dictate the terms under which we can distribute the software we write, or use the software we use that has been written by others.
I reject both of them for trying to control what I do with the code I write. When I write something, _I_ should have control under the provisions it is licensed under.
When I use software from others I have to make a choice about what license provisions I will agree to. These days I have a lot of choices. I like it that way.
I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions in this regard - and I cannot stomach the idea of others trying to make them for me.
This argument by RMS is essentially about power -- HIS power. Bill Gates wants to force you to give him money in exchange for software. RMS wants to force you to give him the source code with any software you write.
Both arguments are essentially about the person doing the arguing, not the person on the other end of the transaction.
The right to choose the license under which you will release the work you do is probably the most fundamental freedom of all. Being forced to give away source code, whether you like it or not, is essentially forced bondage.
The GPL as written is an amazing document, one that does an excellent job of balancing freedoms for all parties involved in software distribution. But it doesn't suit all purposes or all situations. Trying to force it into all transactions is an abrogation of freedoms, not an extension.
This argument by RMS is essentially about power -- HIS power. Bill Gates wants to force you to give him money in exchange for software. RMS wants to force you to give him the source code with any software you write.
The difference being, of course, that BillG only cares about the software he bankrolls, while RMS wants everybody to give up their right to choose their own license. RMS is much worse in this case. BillG is about business. RMS is about religion.
The right to choose the license under which you will release the work you do is probably the most fundamental freedom of all. Being forced to give away source code, whether you like it or not, is essentially forced bondage.
The difference being, of course, that BillG only cares about the software he bankrolls,
Actually Bill Gates' minions have been complaining about the GPL as being 'un-American'. He definitely wants to influence the license terms that software other than his own is ditributed under.
In his own way he is just as bad as Bill Gates, for they are both trying to dictate the terms under which we can distribute the software we write, or use the software we use that has been written by others
The only thing he attempts to prevent people from doing is taking freedom away from other people.
I reject both of them for trying to control what I do with the code I write. When I write something, _I_ should have control under the provisions it is licensed under.
One of the underlying assumptions that GNU has, (which I happen to agree with) is that programs are generally useful technical information, just like mathematical formulas or cooking recipies. If you invented a new way of doing math, would you think that you have the right come hell or high water to keep people from using it if you wanted to? Most people don't think so because they realize that math is something too important and too useful to let one person have a chokehold over. Same goes with programs.
So you reject someone dictating terms to you about how you distribute your program. I reject your bullshit laws that throw me in prison for helping a friend out by copying software, and your nonsense regulations telling me I can't use a common sense algorithm in my programs, that instead I am mandated by law to go around my elbow to get to my ass.
You could make that bullshit claim about anything. Why not books? or television shows? or movies? how about music?
Because society doesn't advance any slower or any faster based on how many fiction novels or movies come out. As for books, it depends on which ones you're talking about. Some books do contain generally useful technical information which is why there is such thing as the GNU Free Documentation License.
Why is it that nobody has patented math? Why is it that that idea strikes us as absurd? Because it's generally useful technical information. When you think about it, programs are really just algorithms, or methods of doing things, and that is generally useful technical information. The same cannot be said of the latest Ken Follet novel, so no, you cannot make that claim about anything.
how does copying binaries of programs have anything to do with "free speech"?
Who said that it did? When we're talking about software freedom, we're not talking about free speech. (Which is important too, but unrelated to this discussion)
It's just a way to get out of paying for something, and a great excuse for the "freedom of the internet".
Oh come on, that's a cop out. Do you think that people saying mathematics should be free is just an elaborate scheme to cheat someone out of money? Free software doesn't mean cheap - the FSF sells collection CDs for something like 5 grand, and people pay it.
If you're going to disagree with anything, disagree with the assertion that programs are generally useful technical information.
Because society doesn't advance any slower or any faster based on how many fiction novels or movies come out.
Maybe I misunderstood your comment but are you asserting that the rate at which society advances is related only to the amount of 'useful technical information' available?
I suppose it depends what you mean by 'advance' but I would hazard that art (including novels and movies), political and economic thinking etc. have done at least as much to advance human society as any technical information.
Most people don't think so because they realize that math is something too important and too useful to let one person have a chokehold over. Same goes with programs.
Wrong, fundamentally.
Programs are a product. They are a manufactured good that, when combined with a type of electronic hardware, performs a certain pattern of calculations, and interprets the results of those calculations to produce information. They are the application of pure logic and hardware and as such have inherent value as capital goods.
Theorems [for brevity I'll lump all mathematical research into that of theorems] are scientific principles that have no inherent capital value. They are ideas that can be applied to capital goods, but theorems are not capital goods in and of themselves because there is no market for them. There is a prestige market for math research, but everyone's still gotta eat.
Programs are created by programmers. Theorems are derived by mathematicians. Programmers get paid for their output, not their capabilities. Write X, get Y. Mathematicians get paid for being capable of figuring things out. Think about X, get Y.
The point is that money is what makes the world work, and if something, such as mathematical research, isn't worth money by itself (thus being sellable), nobody's going to bother trying to own it. This means that math != software, period.
theorems are not capital goods in and of themselves because there is no market for them
There certainly are markets for theorems. Your point is that there are no capital markets. A tautology. But anyway..
If the only reason there is a capital market for programs is that copyright and patent law allow for the creation of artificial shortages, then perhaps programs are not truly capital goods either. Devoid of government sponsorsip, we might consider programs capital goods of negligible value.
So the question is, should government be in the business of creating capital markets for software?
So the question is, should government be in the business of creating capital markets for software?
I'm a programmer. I only code for money or, RARELY, as in once a year, for my own personal enjoyment. As such, I don't care how the market is created as long as it exists and I can be a part of it. Do an informal poll and I think you'll find most programmers (that are working, not that are in school and thus obsessed with idealistic shit like GNU and the FSF) feel similarly. At least, every programmer I've ever met did.
I worked with a guy (nameless in public) who was once on a project with RMS. My former co-worker said RMS was lazy and couldn't code for shit (this was just his opinion, but this guy has a PhD in comp sci and has worked for Sun, Cray, and other big-ticket companies and is the most accomplished programmer that I know), except when he went home and worked on what he wanted to work on. Maybe RMS wants the world to make their software free so that he can get quick cash without worrying about being sloppy?
I know if I could just download the answer to all my projects I'd spend about half the time on them, but I'd feel pretty dirty. But, lots of people wouldn't, look at the popularity of Java. I hear there used to be such a thing as professional integrity.
Obviously, you don't live out in the real world, or you'd never argue against being selfish and caring about anyone except one's self. To do anything different outside of a dorm room or mom/dad's house is to be a moron. The world just doesn't work that way, because people are inherently bad and will take everything from you if you give them the slightest opening.
You're obviously not out of college yet. Once you get in the real world, you will understand completely what I'm talking about.. until then, for your sake, I'd advise you to stop making a naive ass of yourself.
Does your boss know you feel this way? I'll take 'craft', but not 'art'. A work of art is a work of man created to induce or display emotion.
The product of a craft is that of a highly skilled individual who may take a creative approach to solving or creating the product, but it does not express anything more than its utility.
Let me put it this way: If you've ever cried looking at code, you need professional help, or you need to get out and see some REAL art.
"A work of art is a work of man created to induce or display emotion."
I challenge you to find a dictionary that states this (all) that art is.
A definition of art from www.dictionary.com is
1. A system of principles and methods employed in the performance of a set of activities: the art of building.
2. A trade or craft that applies such a system of principles and methods: the art of the lexicographer.
So if your saying code is a craft then you are agreeing with me that it is also art.
You're using the noun-adverb form (can't remember the proper term for that) of 'art' there, which is basically the same thing as craft. Art as a concept (i.e. as a strict noun) is what I said it was.
Take two painters. One paints pictures on canvas. One paints the walls of houses. Both engage in the art of painting. But which one is creating art, and which one performs a craft?
For that matter, I could talk about being a master of the art of defecation, and be grammatically and etymologically correct, but nobody's going to call that a work of art:)
English is a fsck'ed up language and that's why we can even argue about this - too many synonyms.
No, we're both craftsmen. His ego and his blind hero worship of RMS and other programmers just won't let him admit it.
Of course taking a shit isn't a 'craft'. That was an example of how english is a totally non-definite language where any word can be applied to anything and there's an argument for each and every application.
And let me put it this way: If you've never been moved by a beautiful piece of code, you're no programmer.
I guess I'm no programmer then:) To me beauty is a concept that doesn't extend to code. Code just IS - sometime's it's poorly done, sometime's it's well-done, but jesus christ, it's not the equivalent of the Sistine Chapel...
"right" is a wholly subjective term. You want to argue that I'm just saying my opinions are truth, then I can say the same thing.
Every company I've worked for considered a program to be a PRODUCT. That's why programmers create products, not because of some inherent philosophical alignment with production vs. thought, it's because the world deems what they create to be product, and not art. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is whatever gets you paid so that you can survive outside of your corporate master's domain. All this talk about 'art' means nothing when you're talking about the survival of a company, that 100s/1000s/10,000s/etc. people draw their livelihood from, or that your rent is paid, or making sure your kids eat, or your elderly mother has her medicine, or whatever your responsibilities are.
I'm a self-taught programmer. I didn't have the benefit of the good parts of CS training (like theory and modeling and such), or the curse of the bad parts of it like all this holier-than-thou shit about code being 'art' and the study of classical logic and calculus being the only way to get things done. You can learn the theory on your own, but it takes a long time to unlearn the rhetoric. One of these days all the shit will flush from your brain and you'll realize I'm right:)
If you invented a new way of doing math, would you think that you have the right come hell or high water to keep people from using it if you wanted to?
Damn straight I do.
I completely reject the concept that I have to show anything I invent to ANYONE. Ultimately I always have the right and ability to destroy any writings, calculations or code that I author before I show it to anyone.
Given the fundamental freedom to keep my thoughts to myself, it is up to you to come up with a way to encourage me to share my inventions with others. This is what intellectual property is all about - encouraging creators to share their work. If you don't like IP, well too bad, because I am not going to give you my work just for your pleasure or convenience.
I reject your bullshit laws that throw me in prison for helping a friend out by copying software
It's not for you to reject. Copyrights and Patents are explicit contracts between the government and the author. If you don't like it, it's up to you to come up with an alternative that authors like better.
I completely reject the concept that I have to show anything I invent to ANYONE. Ultimately I always have the right and ability to destroy any writings, calculations or code that I author before I show it to anyone.
Of course. But the question is, what rights should you have once the cat is out of the bag, so to speak.
Of course. But the question is, what rights should you have once the cat is out of the bag, so to speak.
Indeed, what rights are you going to offer me in exchange for letting the cat out of the bag? Patent rights? Copyrights?
How about I just write a contract that gives you the right to run this program on a single computer with no writable removable media drives in exchange for a whopping monthly fee. As part of this contract you must post a big old bond that is forfeit if you don't keep the existance of this software secret except for those within your company that I approve, and you must keep this computer, and all copies of the software in a locked room inside which there is no network connectivity. Only two people, identified by you and approved by me are allowed inside this room. Any disassembly, reverse-engineering etc. forfeits the bond. We have the right to audit, inspect your premises etc. You are not allowed to use any of the software technology present in this program in your future products. (I saw this in an NDA contract once).
Are you going to make contracts like this illegal? Good luck - that means a major overhaul of our system of government.
If you don't come up with an offer of rights I consider fair, the cat stays in the bag, Sorry.
"It's not for you to reject. Copyrights and Patents are explicit contracts between the government and the author. If you don't like it, it's up to you to come up with an alternative that authors like better."
If he doesnt have the power to reject it then what good would it do him to come up with an alternative.
What difference does it make if Authors like it better ?
Whats to stop him coming up with an alternative the PEOPLE like better, or just the GOVERNMENT like better.
You think authors need to approve laws that effect them ?
I completely reject the concept that I have to show anything I invent to ANYONE. Ultimately I always have the right and ability to destroy any writings, calculations or code that I author before I show it to anyone.
I guess so. But you should recognize that your ideas and inventions were not born out of blue sky. They were based on ideas that other people had _and_ published ( you _did_ go to school, and read books, and talked with others, didn't you ?).
I _do_ grant to you the power to keep your inventions for yourself. But I also recognize that if anybody did that, our society would have zero progress.
In the field of software, particularly, we are dangerously approaching this extreme limit. Therefore, I am grateful to any developer which gives up his power to give to me (and other users) more freedom.
Most people don't think so because they realize that math is something too important and too useful to let one person have a chokehold over.
I wish I agreed with you, but in reality I suspect their motivation is something else: the stakes of keeping a mathematical formula secret are so low that it doesn't matter. If you discover some remarkable property of 5-dimensional toroids, your doctoral thesis won't be worth the paper it's printed on in financial terms.
BUT, you can still pass it around your peers for status and glory. Of course you can't acknowledge this outright, you have to "contribute it to the community" because it's so godawful important.
Bottom line: mathematical formulas lie in academia, software lies in business. If mathematicians could make millions on their esoteric formulas, you can bet we'd be having this debate about that, too.
If you invented a new way of doing math, would you think that you have the right come hell or high water to keep people from using it if you wanted to? Most people don't think so because they realize that math is something too important and too useful to let one person have a chokehold over. Same goes with programs.
There is a big difference between copyrighting and patenting. If I invented a new technique and patented it, then I would be preventing others from using it without giving me money. Software licensing doesn't do that.
A software license might restrict users' ability to copy, distribute, or even use a specific piece of software, but would not prevent a user from using the underlying techniques, unless patents had been filed. I don't think you are really comparing like with like.
FWIW I don't have a problem with developers being able to choose their license (particularly if users are aware of competitors using different licenses) but software patents stick in the craw as much as the patenting of mathematical formulae and naturally occurring chemicals/drugs.
Actually, your views aren't so bad to me as a programmer. I know exactly what I'd do under your utopia. I'd set myself up as a service provider, and charge a nice fee for anyone to use my service at my facilities.
Life goes on. The Taliban weren't able to destroy every television, and neither will you be able to shut down my enterprising spirit.
One of the underlying assumptions that GNU has, (which I happen to agree with) is that programs are generally useful technical information, just like mathematical formulas or cooking recipies.
How about Col. Sanders' chicken or Mrs. Field's cookies? My feeling is that once you release a product into the public, you accept a certain risk that people will take it apart and see how it works, and if they successfully clone it, you're SOL. However, just because you're releasing a finished product to the world, that doesn't mean you have to release the blueprints. People should be allowed to profit from their innovations. (Whether they should be allowed to profit from illegally destroying their competition is another matter entirely.) There are scores of recipies out there for chicken and cookies, but if Col. Sanders and Mrs. Fields want to keep their particular recipies secret, they certainly have that right. If they wish to distribute their recipies to make the world a better place and/or let others improve them so they themselves can eat tastier food and/or achieve worldwide fame, hooray for them. However, they (along with most software manufacturers) sell consumer goods that are not required by everyone to sustain life. You can buy other cookies or chicken, or make your own, or do without them. Same with software. Don't like paying for Photoshop? Use PhotoPaint, or the GIMP, or write your own, or don't edit photos.
Basically, you should be allowed to do with your creations as you wish. If you decide it's crap and throw it in the trash, fine. If you like it but want to keep it to yourself, fine. If you want to release a finished product based on your idea but not tell people how to make it, fine. If you want to make the information available to the world at large, fine. It is something you created. Do with it as you wish.
Licensing is a whole other kettle of worms but I don't want to open that can of cats and let those fish out of the bag right now. Extolling the virtues of creation is tiring, not to mention the strain involved in mixing metaphors.
I see the RIAA as more protecting the "rights" of content distributors than content creators.
Maybe it's helpful to analyze the point of the GPL in those terms. Like it says, general copyright does not (and cannot) proscribe or prohibit most kinds of use. Modification and redistribution are protected by the GPL and restricted by copyright.
As I read the story, RMS and Kuhn reject the idea of any license which allows anyone down the line to restrict the modification and redistribution rights provided by the GPL. Their moral imperative is to promote sharing, and they recognize that the cost of that is to restrict certain activities of developers down the line.
It's a definite spectrum, but I don't think the FSF is so far on one end as the apparent prevailing opinion of story posters so far would have you believe.
When I write something, _I_ should have control under the provisions it is licensed under.
The question isn't really so much whether you should control the terms of the license, as whether being able to 'license' software has any validity, period. The question is whether society should reserve the right for developers to control how members of that society use the software they write and distribute. And yes, this 'right' to which you lay claim is not a law of nature, but a social construct.
It's very easy to understand why developers might prefer to retain control. What is not clear is whether and why society should prefer this arrangement. If society should give you this right, what does society gain in return?
Or is social progress irrelevant? Is there some legal precept paramount to the greater social good?
Or is social progress irrelevant? Is there some legal precept paramount to the greater social good?
The ends do not justify the means. If we sacrifice all our individual freedom - because that's the logical endpoint of what you suggest - to the 'greater social good', then where will we be? We'll have a wonderful 'society', a wonderful, flourishing, ABSTRACT CONCEPT.
People are what matter in this world. If RMS had a chance to inflict his ideas fully upon the world, we would face oblivion of the indivudal.
How can giving people the ability to tell others what information they can and cannot communicate, and what programs they can and cannot run, possibly be an individual freedom? Even (sane) proponents of copyright law will admit that it, not the absence of it, is clearly a deviation from individual freedom - one enacted for utilitarian reasons of promoting creativity (read the American constitution for example).
Being given the legal mandate to tell people what they cannot do with information, just because you happen to have written it, can never be construed as a freedom and can thus only be justified in the context of social benefit, as the poster you responded to wrote. It is little different from my and my peers practice of forming a government that taxes you - taxing you is not "our individual freedom" it is a power we grant ourselves and justify in a social context.
Ask yourself who has been more threatening to your individual freedom of late. RMS and others who advocate free communication, or the MPAA & RIAA and their laws like the DMCA and SSSCA? (Which are both justified and _necessary_ laws if we are to put the protection of copyright above it's social cost.)
What is not clear is whether and why society should prefer this arrangement.
If society should give you this right, what does society gain in return?
That's obvious. What they gain is that I write good software that benefits them, even though it's harder than making money by abusively exploiting people.
Such as, for instance, that time when I led a team to write a 250,000 line visualization package, wrote my own terms of use, and gave it away including source for free.
If society wants developers to be cogs in machines, then society shouldn't be outraged when they operate like cogs in machines and keep turning out the same old crap.
Look at copyright law. It's obviously a restriction on free speech. It's legally recognized as a restriction on free speech. It's there on the grounds that society benefits from having lots of writers writing lots of original stuff, and that wouldn't happen as much if they couldn't control their work. The same is true of software development.
It's very easy to understand why developers might prefer to retain control. What is not clear is whether and why society should prefer this arrangement. If society should give you this right, what does society gain in return?
Society gains my software. If I don't retain adaquate rights to my work after release, it doesn't get released. I keep it a deep dark secret. Just like the trades and guilds did their technology before the advent of patent law in the 18th century.
Its all about a continuum with bill gates representing one polarity and stallman the other. Somewhere there's a middle path to be walked here . . . focusing only on one polarity or the other fails to take into account the whole. Either extreme will not serve our evolution because the polarities must be in a balanced cycle of expansion to progress forward.
Didn't that buddha guy say something about the middle path.
Sometimes its worth the effort to go beyond simple binary/polar thinking:-).
PS MICHAEL your editors note fails to really weigh in as more significant than a comment. Would you consider placing your thoughts in a comment next time?
Who appointed Stallman God? In his own way he is just as bad as Bill Gates
I am absolutely INCENSED that you are trying to dictate to ME what comparison I should make between Stallman and Bill Gates. When I post to slashdot, _I_ should have control as to how I portray those two people. How DARE you try to control my thoughts by expressing your own opinion!
"An organization dries up if you don't challenge it with growth."
-- Mark Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments
Freedom/Power (Score:5, Flamebait)
I reject both of them for trying to control what I do with the code I write. When I write something, _I_ should have control under the provisions it is licensed under.
When I use software from others I have to make a choice about what license provisions I will agree to. These days I have a lot of choices. I like it that way.
I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions in this regard - and I cannot stomach the idea of others trying to make them for me.
that's not a bad analogy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Both arguments are essentially about the person doing the arguing, not the person on the other end of the transaction.
The right to choose the license under which you will release the work you do is probably the most fundamental freedom of all. Being forced to give away source code, whether you like it or not, is essentially forced bondage.
The GPL as written is an amazing document, one that does an excellent job of balancing freedoms for all parties involved in software distribution. But it doesn't suit all purposes or all situations. Trying to force it into all transactions is an abrogation of freedoms, not an extension.
Re:that's not a bad analogy.... (Score:1)
The difference being, of course, that BillG only cares about the software he bankrolls, while RMS wants everybody to give up their right to choose their own license. RMS is much worse in this case. BillG is about business. RMS is about religion.
Exactly!
Re:that's not a bad analogy.... (Score:2)
Actually Bill Gates' minions have been complaining about the GPL as being 'un-American'. He definitely wants to influence the license terms that software other than his own is ditributed under.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody, of course you're free to ignore him.
In his own way he is just as bad as Bill Gates, for they are both trying to dictate the terms under which we can distribute the software we write, or use the software we use that has been written by others
The only thing he attempts to prevent people from doing is taking freedom away from other people.
I reject both of them for trying to control what I do with the code I write. When I write something, _I_ should have control under the provisions it is licensed under.
One of the underlying assumptions that GNU has, (which I happen to agree with) is that programs are generally useful technical information, just like mathematical formulas or cooking recipies. If you invented a new way of doing math, would you think that you have the right come hell or high water to keep people from using it if you wanted to? Most people don't think so because they realize that math is something too important and too useful to let one person have a chokehold over. Same goes with programs.
So you reject someone dictating terms to you about how you distribute your program. I reject your bullshit laws that throw me in prison for helping a friend out by copying software, and your nonsense regulations telling me I can't use a common sense algorithm in my programs, that instead I am mandated by law to go around my elbow to get to my ass.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
Because society doesn't advance any slower or any faster based on how many fiction novels or movies come out. As for books, it depends on which ones you're talking about. Some books do contain generally useful technical information which is why there is such thing as the GNU Free Documentation License.
Why is it that nobody has patented math? Why is it that that idea strikes us as absurd? Because it's generally useful technical information. When you think about it, programs are really just algorithms, or methods of doing things, and that is generally useful technical information. The same cannot be said of the latest Ken Follet novel, so no, you cannot make that claim about anything.
how does copying binaries of programs have anything to do with "free speech"?
Who said that it did? When we're talking about software freedom, we're not talking about free speech. (Which is important too, but unrelated to this discussion)
It's just a way to get out of paying for something, and a great excuse for the "freedom of the internet".
Oh come on, that's a cop out. Do you think that people saying mathematics should be free is just an elaborate scheme to cheat someone out of money? Free software doesn't mean cheap - the FSF sells collection CDs for something like 5 grand, and people pay it.
If you're going to disagree with anything, disagree with the assertion that programs are generally useful technical information.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
Maybe I misunderstood your comment but are you asserting that the rate at which society advances is related only to the amount of 'useful technical information' available?
I suppose it depends what you mean by 'advance' but I would hazard that art (including novels and movies), political and economic thinking etc. have done at least as much to advance human society as any technical information.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:3, Insightful)
Most people don't think so because they realize that math is something too important and too useful to let one person have a chokehold over. Same goes with programs.
Wrong, fundamentally.
Programs are a product. They are a manufactured good that, when combined with a type of electronic hardware, performs a certain pattern of calculations, and interprets the results of those calculations to produce information. They are the application of pure logic and hardware and as such have inherent value as capital goods.
Theorems [for brevity I'll lump all mathematical research into that of theorems] are scientific principles that have no inherent capital value. They are ideas that can be applied to capital goods, but theorems are not capital goods in and of themselves because there is no market for them. There is a prestige market for math research, but everyone's still gotta eat.
Programs are created by programmers. Theorems are derived by mathematicians. Programmers get paid for their output, not their capabilities. Write X, get Y. Mathematicians get paid for being capable of figuring things out. Think about X, get Y.
The point is that money is what makes the world work, and if something, such as mathematical research, isn't worth money by itself (thus being sellable), nobody's going to bother trying to own it. This means that math != software, period.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
There certainly are markets for theorems. Your point is that there are no capital markets. A tautology. But anyway..
If the only reason there is a capital market for programs is that copyright and patent law allow for the creation of artificial shortages, then perhaps programs are not truly capital goods either. Devoid of government sponsorsip, we might consider programs capital goods of negligible value.
So the question is, should government be in the business of creating capital markets for software?
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1, Troll)
So the question is, should government be in the business of creating capital markets for software?
I'm a programmer. I only code for money or, RARELY, as in once a year, for my own personal enjoyment. As such, I don't care how the market is created as long as it exists and I can be a part of it. Do an informal poll and I think you'll find most programmers (that are working, not that are in school and thus obsessed with idealistic shit like GNU and the FSF) feel similarly. At least, every programmer I've ever met did.
I worked with a guy (nameless in public) who was once on a project with RMS. My former co-worker said RMS was lazy and couldn't code for shit (this was just his opinion, but this guy has a PhD in comp sci and has worked for Sun, Cray, and other big-ticket companies and is the most accomplished programmer that I know), except when he went home and worked on what he wanted to work on. Maybe RMS wants the world to make their software free so that he can get quick cash without worrying about being sloppy?
I know if I could just download the answer to all my projects I'd spend about half the time on them, but I'd feel pretty dirty. But, lots of people wouldn't, look at the popularity of Java. I hear there used to be such a thing as professional integrity.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
Obviously, you don't live out in the real world, or you'd never argue against being selfish and caring about anyone except one's self. To do anything different outside of a dorm room or mom/dad's house is to be a moron. The world just doesn't work that way, because people are inherently bad and will take everything from you if you give them the slightest opening.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
Correction, SOME people are inherently bad... enough to make life pretty difficult but certainly not the majority.
That's a very twisted world view you've got.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
Speak for yourself, my programs are art.
They are an expression of my view on how a problem should be solved.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2, Insightful)
The product of a craft is that of a highly skilled individual who may take a creative approach to solving or creating the product, but it does not express anything more than its utility.
Let me put it this way: If you've ever cried looking at code, you need professional help, or you need to get out and see some REAL art.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
I challenge you to find a dictionary that states this (all) that art is.
A definition of art from www.dictionary.com is
1. A system of principles and methods employed in the performance of a set of activities: the art of building.
2. A trade or craft that applies such a system of principles and methods: the art of the lexicographer.
So if your saying code is a craft then you are agreeing with me that it is also art.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
Take two painters. One paints pictures on canvas. One paints the walls of houses. Both engage in the art of painting. But which one is creating art, and which one performs a craft?
For that matter, I could talk about being a master of the art of defecation, and be grammatically and etymologically correct, but nobody's going to call that a work of art
English is a fsck'ed up language and that's why we can even argue about this - too many synonyms.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
And I wouldn't call taking a shit 'craft'... in any circumstance
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
Of course taking a shit isn't a 'craft'. That was an example of how english is a totally non-definite language where any word can be applied to anything and there's an argument for each and every application.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
And let me put it this way: If you've never been moved by a beautiful piece of code, you're no programmer.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
I guess I'm no programmer then
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
What code? To me Minsky's implementation of a Universal Turing Machine is quite beautiful.
Re:Sorry, that's total bullshit. (Score:2)
Every company I've worked for considered a program to be a PRODUCT. That's why programmers create products, not because of some inherent philosophical alignment with production vs. thought, it's because the world deems what they create to be product, and not art. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is whatever gets you paid so that you can survive outside of your corporate master's domain. All this talk about 'art' means nothing when you're talking about the survival of a company, that 100s/1000s/10,000s/etc. people draw their livelihood from, or that your rent is paid, or making sure your kids eat, or your elderly mother has her medicine, or whatever your responsibilities are.
I'm a self-taught programmer. I didn't have the benefit of the good parts of CS training (like theory and modeling and such), or the curse of the bad parts of it like all this holier-than-thou shit about code being 'art' and the study of classical logic and calculus being the only way to get things done. You can learn the theory on your own, but it takes a long time to unlearn the rhetoric. One of these days all the shit will flush from your brain and you'll realize I'm right
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:3, Insightful)
Damn straight I do.
I completely reject the concept that I have to show anything I invent to ANYONE. Ultimately I always have the right and ability to destroy any writings, calculations or code that I author before I show it to anyone.
Given the fundamental freedom to keep my thoughts to myself, it is up to you to come up with a way to encourage me to share my inventions with others. This is what intellectual property is all about - encouraging creators to share their work. If you don't like IP, well too bad, because I am not going to give you my work just for your pleasure or convenience.
I reject your bullshit laws that throw me in prison for helping a friend out by copying software
It's not for you to reject. Copyrights and Patents are explicit contracts between the government and the author. If you don't like it, it's up to you to come up with an alternative that authors like better.
Otherwise many will just rm -rf the recipe.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
Of course. But the question is, what rights should you have once the cat is out of the bag, so to speak.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
Indeed, what rights are you going to offer me in exchange for letting the cat out of the bag? Patent rights? Copyrights?
How about I just write a contract that gives you the right to run this program on a single computer with no writable removable media drives in exchange for a whopping monthly fee. As part of this contract you must post a big old bond that is forfeit if you don't keep the existance of this software secret except for those within your company that I approve, and you must keep this computer, and all copies of the software in a locked room inside which there is no network connectivity. Only two people, identified by you and approved by me are allowed inside this room. Any disassembly, reverse-engineering etc. forfeits the bond. We have the right to audit, inspect your premises etc. You are not allowed to use any of the software technology present in this program in your future products. (I saw this in an NDA contract once).
Are you going to make contracts like this illegal? Good luck - that means a major overhaul of our system of government.
If you don't come up with an offer of rights I consider fair, the cat stays in the bag, Sorry.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
Yep. Thanks for your support.
Actually, it mostly means reforming copyright and patent law. Which is what we're talking about.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
If he doesnt have the power to reject it then what good would it do him to come up with an alternative.
What difference does it make if Authors like it better ?
Whats to stop him coming up with an alternative the PEOPLE like better, or just the GOVERNMENT like better.
You think authors need to approve laws that effect them ?
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
I guess so. But you should recognize that your ideas and inventions were not born out of blue sky. They were based on ideas that other people had _and_ published ( you _did_ go to school, and read books, and talked with others, didn't you ?).
I _do_ grant to you the power to keep your inventions for yourself. But I also recognize that if anybody did that, our society would have zero progress.
In the field of software, particularly, we are dangerously approaching this extreme limit. Therefore, I am grateful to any developer which gives up his power to give to me (and other users) more freedom.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
I wish I agreed with you, but in reality I suspect their motivation is something else: the stakes of keeping a mathematical formula secret are so low that it doesn't matter. If you discover some remarkable property of 5-dimensional toroids, your doctoral thesis won't be worth the paper it's printed on in financial terms.
BUT, you can still pass it around your peers for status and glory. Of course you can't acknowledge this outright, you have to "contribute it to the community" because it's so godawful important.
Bottom line: mathematical formulas lie in academia, software lies in business. If mathematicians could make millions on their esoteric formulas, you can bet we'd be having this debate about that, too.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
There is a big difference between copyrighting and patenting. If I invented a new technique and patented it, then I would be preventing others from using it without giving me money. Software licensing doesn't do that.
A software license might restrict users' ability to copy, distribute, or even use a specific piece of software, but would not prevent a user from using the underlying techniques, unless patents had been filed. I don't think you are really comparing like with like.
FWIW I don't have a problem with developers being able to choose their license (particularly if users are aware of competitors using different licenses) but software patents stick in the craw as much as the patenting of mathematical formulae and naturally occurring chemicals/drugs.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
Life goes on. The Taliban weren't able to destroy every television, and neither will you be able to shut down my enterprising spirit.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
One of the underlying assumptions that GNU has, (which I happen to agree with) is that programs are generally useful technical information, just like mathematical formulas or cooking recipies.
How about Col. Sanders' chicken or Mrs. Field's cookies? My feeling is that once you release a product into the public, you accept a certain risk that people will take it apart and see how it works, and if they successfully clone it, you're SOL. However, just because you're releasing a finished product to the world, that doesn't mean you have to release the blueprints. People should be allowed to profit from their innovations. (Whether they should be allowed to profit from illegally destroying their competition is another matter entirely.) There are scores of recipies out there for chicken and cookies, but if Col. Sanders and Mrs. Fields want to keep their particular recipies secret, they certainly have that right. If they wish to distribute their recipies to make the world a better place and/or let others improve them so they themselves can eat tastier food and/or achieve worldwide fame, hooray for them. However, they (along with most software manufacturers) sell consumer goods that are not required by everyone to sustain life. You can buy other cookies or chicken, or make your own, or do without them. Same with software. Don't like paying for Photoshop? Use PhotoPaint, or the GIMP, or write your own, or don't edit photos.
Basically, you should be allowed to do with your creations as you wish. If you decide it's crap and throw it in the trash, fine. If you like it but want to keep it to yourself, fine. If you want to release a finished product based on your idea but not tell people how to make it, fine. If you want to make the information available to the world at large, fine. It is something you created. Do with it as you wish.
Licensing is a whole other kettle of worms but I don't want to open that can of cats and let those fish out of the bag right now. Extolling the virtues of creation is tiring, not to mention the strain involved in mixing metaphors.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe it's helpful to analyze the point of the GPL in those terms. Like it says, general copyright does not (and cannot) proscribe or prohibit most kinds of use. Modification and redistribution are protected by the GPL and restricted by copyright.
As I read the story, RMS and Kuhn reject the idea of any license which allows anyone down the line to restrict the modification and redistribution rights provided by the GPL. Their moral imperative is to promote sharing, and they recognize that the cost of that is to restrict certain activities of developers down the line.
It's a definite spectrum, but I don't think the FSF is so far on one end as the apparent prevailing opinion of story posters so far would have you believe.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
Tim
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:5, Insightful)
The question isn't really so much whether you should control the terms of the license, as whether being able to 'license' software has any validity, period. The question is whether society should reserve the right for developers to control how members of that society use the software they write and distribute. And yes, this 'right' to which you lay claim is not a law of nature, but a social construct.
It's very easy to understand why developers might prefer to retain control. What is not clear is whether and why society should prefer this arrangement. If society should give you this right, what does society gain in return?
Or is social progress irrelevant? Is there some legal precept paramount to the greater social good?
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
It gets better software or other IP. That is the theory, the argument and the justification of IP law.
The ends do not justify the means. (Score:1)
The ends do not justify the means. If we sacrifice all our individual freedom - because that's the logical endpoint of what you suggest - to the 'greater social good', then where will we be? We'll have a wonderful 'society', a wonderful, flourishing, ABSTRACT CONCEPT.
People are what matter in this world. If RMS had a chance to inflict his ideas fully upon the world, we would face oblivion of the indivudal.
-rahl
Re:The ends do not justify the means. (Score:2)
How can giving people the ability to tell others what information they can and cannot communicate, and what programs they can and cannot run, possibly be an individual freedom? Even (sane) proponents of copyright law will admit that it, not the absence of it, is clearly a deviation from individual freedom - one enacted for utilitarian reasons of promoting creativity (read the American constitution for example).
Being given the legal mandate to tell people what they cannot do with information, just because you happen to have written it, can never be construed as a freedom and can thus only be justified in the context of social benefit, as the poster you responded to wrote. It is little different from my and my peers practice of forming a government that taxes you - taxing you is not "our individual freedom" it is a power we grant ourselves and justify in a social context.
Ask yourself who has been more threatening to your individual freedom of late. RMS and others who advocate free communication, or the MPAA & RIAA and their laws like the DMCA and SSSCA? (Which are both justified and _necessary_ laws if we are to put the protection of copyright above it's social cost.)
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:1)
What is not clear is whether and why society should prefer this arrangement.
If society should give you this right, what does society gain in return?
That's obvious. What they gain is that I write good software that benefits them, even though it's harder than making money by abusively exploiting people.
Such as, for instance, that time when I led a team to write a 250,000 line visualization package, wrote my own terms of use, and gave it away including source for free.
If society wants developers to be cogs in machines, then society shouldn't be outraged when they operate like cogs in machines and keep turning out the same old crap.
Look at copyright law. It's obviously a restriction on free speech. It's legally recognized as a restriction on free speech. It's there on the grounds that society benefits from having lots of writers writing lots of original stuff, and that wouldn't happen as much if they couldn't control their work. The same is true of software development.
Re:Freedom/Power (Score:2)
Society gains my software. If I don't retain adaquate rights to my work after release, it doesn't get released. I keep it a deep dark secret. Just like the trades and guilds did their technology before the advent of patent law in the 18th century.
the middle path (Score:1)
Its all about a continuum with bill gates representing one polarity and stallman the other. Somewhere there's a middle path to be walked here . . . focusing only on one polarity or the other fails to take into account the whole. Either extreme will not serve our evolution because the polarities must be in a balanced cycle of expansion to progress forward.
Didn't that buddha guy say something about the middle path.
Sometimes its worth the effort to go beyond simple binary/polar thinking
PS MICHAEL your editors note fails to really weigh in as more significant than a comment. Would you consider placing your thoughts in a comment next time?
Who appointed you God? (Score:2)
I am absolutely INCENSED that you are trying to dictate to ME what comparison I should make between Stallman and Bill Gates. When I post to slashdot, _I_ should have control as to how I portray those two people. How DARE you try to control my thoughts by expressing your own opinion!