Being Free is Hard to Do 659
ValourX writes "What is more important to you -- the four freedoms of Free Software, or the ability to maximize the value of your computer? It's a question that comes up on Slashdot often, but rarely is it so well argued as it is in this NewsForge article. How important are the FSF's four freedoms to you? What are you willing to sacrifice for those freedoms?" NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.
Depends... (Score:5, Interesting)
I suppose that depends on how you define "value". Personally, having Free Software and using Free Software has done more to "maximize the value" of my computer far more than anything else I can think of.
SealBeater
Re:Depends... (Score:2, Insightful)
My thoughts exactly. The only reason I'd need proprietary OS (ie. Windows) on my PC is to play games -- not having it saves a lot of my time
Re:Depends... (Score:2)
Re:Depends... (Score:2, Insightful)
I remain on Windows for one reason and one reason only: Games. Like many other geeks, video games have become my release (so I don't have to drink.. or hell knows what else). And not a one of the games I am playing right now could be run on Linux. Aside from games, I have all of the tools I need to "live" on Linux.. Internet, email, web programming, software programming.. everything but the games. This is precicesly why I keep an up-to-date and functioning copy of Linux on my drive at al
Re:Depends... (Score:3, Interesting)
I recently set up a Debian unstable box for my mum who is in her 70s, has *never* used computers before and is completely non-technical. She uses it for email (Evolution), word-processing (OpenOffice.org) and web browsing (Firefox). I spent about half an hour showing her to use it. She doesn't need to ask for help.
About two years ago I set up my brother and hi
Freedom 0? (Score:5, Informative)
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (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 improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Re:Freedom 0? (Score:4, Insightful)
Economic value of freedoms (Score:3, Interesting)
I am a pragmatist, and I will generally use the best tool for the job. That being said, I have found that open source offers me unparalleled capabilities and value at low prices. This is because active open source projects turn these four freedoms into economic advantages. These include:
1) Community support is generally
Re:Freedom 0? (Score:3, Insightful)
Economic balance of freedom software cost. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I can see it being an impediment to adoption of free software because of the sometimes unreasonable demands placed by restrictive licences. The GPL does prevent advances and progress in some cases, such as device drivers, that otherwise would be possible. Same with flash and other non-free media solutions, whether DRM or CSS on DVDs or what have you.
I myself feel however, that sacrificing utility for the benefit of using a free software package, is only rational if the resulting loss in utility is no greater than the benefits. However, it is easy to quantify the benefit of free as in beer software, but harder to economically evalutate the benefits of free as in freedom software.
Re:Economic balance of freedom software cost. (Score:2)
The GPL is only half the issue. IIRC, the kernel developers intentionally and frequently break API/ABI compatibility between minor releases so as to "encourage" vendors to release drivers under non-proprietary licenses.
I find that a bit extreme. Zealous even.
Re:Economic balance of freedom software cost. (Score:4, Informative)
People keep saying that, but I have yet to see just a single case where it happened. Kernel interfaces do change, and they change for the better. But I have never seen a change, which happened just to encourage rease of driver sources.
Right now I can remember a single change between minor releases, somewhere in the 2.4 kernels the up_and_exit function was removed, and a new complete_and_exit was introduced. I don't know how many drivers where affected by that, but at least the USB driver had to be changed. Of course the change didn't happen to break compatibility. The purpose of up_and_exit was to avoid a race condition when removing a module which had a kernel thread running that needed to be stopped before removing the module. If the module had just called up to signal it was terminated, and afterwards called exit, the module code might have been removed before the up call returned and caused a kernel crash as it returned to an undefined address. Having the up_and_exit function solved that problem. But it turned out there was still a race condition. Though no code was accessed inside the module, the sempahore itself would be a part of the module, and it could be removed before up had finished accessing it. This is why completions were introduced, they are different from semaphores, and are designed exactly to avoid this problem. So every user of up_and_exit had to be changed to use complete_and_exit instead. Nothing would have prevented leaving up_and_exit in the kernel, but any user was known to have a race condition. Had the function been left in the kernel, a lot of those buggy users of it might not have been noticed. By removing up_and_exit all instances of the bug would be revealed, and could easilly be fixed.
This was just one example, there might be more. The point here, is that the change did not happen to intentionally break binary compatibility. The change happened to fix a problem. And while you might think it broke the compatibility, it really just revealed all the modules, that were already broken. And kernel developers frequently make changes to make debuging easier, that is part of the reason the code is of such a good quality.
The kernel developers don't intentionally break binary only modules, in fact it seems they ignore binary drivers as much as possible. If a change can improve the kernel, it happens. In stable branches such changes only happen if they are necesarry to fix a bug, or if they don't cause major breaking. If all drivers in the kernel can trivially be updated to the new interface, there is no reason not to make the change.
Re:Economic balance of freedom software cost. (Score:3, Insightful)
I could only assume the new function needed data not suplied in calls to the old function.
Mycroft
Except that they don't. (Score:3, Funny)
(As someone else has said, APIs do change - but they change for reasons other than "let's break all the binary drivers".)
Re:Economic balance of freedom software cost. (Score:2)
Ugh. Any other pixel pushers out there wince at that comment? Heh.
Well argued? (Score:5, Insightful)
He doesn't even try to actually make a connection between the apparent premise and the apparent conclusion.
Direct quotes:
But he doesn't say WHY anyone with these high-moral ideals should let go of them.
Again, why not? Because it makes him uncomfortable to be asked to make "unfavorable sacrifices"?
Free Software where freedom is important (Score:2)
Re:Free Software where freedom is important (Score:2)
this is what annoys the heck of me when people write GPL licensed java programs that depend on Sun's java runtime to run. And why RMS is so right to point out about the Java trap. [gnu.org]
Unsurprisingly Enough (Score:2)
Re:Unsurprisingly Enough (Score:2)
I don't mean to pick on you; this seemed an ideal place to post this mini-rant.
Just like "it works for me" is the biggest excuse for defects in software, "personal taste" is the biggest excuse in interfaces.
Interface design may not be a completely solved problem yet, but we certainly know a lot of things not to do by now.
Not that important to me (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that important to be honest. I certainly like the cost aspects of 'free software', but what really concerns me is choice. I try to avoid relying on a product which has a single supplier or is not standards-compliant, even if it does meet the FSF's standards.
maybe.... balance? (Score:4, Insightful)
Other things seem to be best supplied by the commercial market - Doom3 & the nvidia drivers that let me play it on my linux box, for example. These things are all good, and there is a place for all of them. Jumping up and down about whether they meet RMS's definition of 'Free' or not is a waste of time, imho.
Tertiary Education (Score:3, Interesting)
Even with things like
I mean, what's the fucking deal? We're students. We're not all living in mummy and daddy's basement, having money freely thrown at us.
Free != zero cost (Score:5, Insightful)
A love for zero-cost software isn't bad. I see a lot of people coming to the F/OSS movement because of it. They could run a warez copy of Photoshop, but then they discover the GIMP. After a while, they may discover the fantastic quality of software available & may try more of it. They might discover how wonderfully helpful and intelligent the community is--they are eager to help & are eager to have you contribute back.
I probably wouldn't have started to use F/OSS if it was priced unreasonably. But now I find the other parts of freedom to be much more important. It is frustrating to find commercial software that is stagnant. Bugs are always present in any software (some of which are security vulnerabilities, some of which are just annoyances that I have run into). But with F/OSS, I can usually see if a bug has already been reported, look for solutions, or report it & wait for insight from others. I'm not much of a programmer, but I can also sometimes discover a fix myself. The frustration of not being able to have this basic ability with some nonfree software is horrid.
I recently started to contribute a small amount of money each month to software which I use every day--which I depend on for entertainment and to get my work done. Paying for free software?! Well, at least it is tax deductible & it does make me feel good.
I would definitely say that the four freedoms are more important than zero-cost.
Re:Free != zero cost (Score:3, Insightful)
You lose something, but it's not freedom. Maybe it's convenience, or maybe it's value, but there's no way it could be freedom because there's no lock-in -- you're still free to switch back to the proprietary software. That may not be -- and probably isn't -- true in the other direction.
----
As an aside, the Gimp is most emphatically *NOT* unusable for "real" web site design work. Want proof? Take a look a
Cost is definitely a factor for me with new apps (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a missing fifth fundamental freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
What's missing is just like "The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public" only the opposite -
"The freedom to improve the program, and not release your improvements to the public" (or sell said improvements to the public for profit)"
This is the issue commonly called copylefting.
What it comes down to is "Free for anyone who's part of our [opensource] club" as set forth by the GPL (If you're a Checkpoint dev, a legal obligation to release all/parts-of the source code of the product makes whatever ran you into that obligation anything but free), or "Free to anyone. Period." as set forth by X11/modified-BSD licenses. The latter offer the fifth freedom.
The obligation [e.g. lack of freedom] to integrate GPL code with [often immense] business-owned closed code serves on one hand to spur [few, IMHO] businesses to go opensource, while keeping a dark "obligation" cloud over Open Source that scares the rest away. I personally ran into this dillema at my former workplace. The result was us using BSD-licensed and commercial solutions, while [to my great dismay] avoiding GPL-code like the plague.
The LGPL is a fair compromise, unfortunately few projects use it. Sometimes you need code from a GPL app, and you're willing to wrap it in a library yourself (and offer that library's code to the public) but since the original dev never considered this and just slapped the GPL on his work, and you can't use it (whereas had he done so with LGPL, you would be able to do so).
The conclusion (which promptly earned me two flamebait mods last time I said this unliked piece of truth here) is that everything GPL is quite unfree to those [nice, evil, fill your own description] people who pay us coders our salaries and feed our families.
I, personally, as a coder who wants to tap open source where I work, would definitely like it to be otherwise. For the GNU codebase to be as legal-obligation-free and accessible as the X11-ilcensed or mod-BSD-licensed codebase (and a big thank you to anyone altruistic enough to use those licenses on his donated code).
Wishful thinking I guess...
Re:There's a missing fifth fundamental freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
What you see as lack of freedom I see as freedom: users are GUARANTEED the improvements made by others! Contact the developer. He may relicense it to you. Since you are selling it, you might want to/have to compensate him financially for a license.
Re:There's a missing fifth fundamental freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
Ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ridiculous (Score:2)
Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
The goal of the BSD license is to make all software better.
Re:Exactly (Score:2)
Re:Exactly (Score:3, Insightful)
>improvements back into your own program now...
>they're under absolutely NO obligation to put their
>improvements back into the common pot.
This however is the point that the GNU Marxist Brigade seem to keep missing. The definition of freedom is being able to choose *whether* you put improvements back into "the common pot" or *not*.
Also...in terms of Microsloth loving the BSD license, so the hell what? If they appropriated BSD code it'd be the best thing t
Re:There's a missing fifth fundamental freedom (Score:4, Informative)
So you want to take my GPL software, incorporate it into your closed source project and sell it back to me ?
And because you can't to this you are complaing that the GPL is your enemy ?
well thank fuck for the GPL !!!!!
Re:There's a missing fifth fundamental freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Your contribution is greatly appreciated.
2. I [as a coder who is a paid representative of my employer] would greatly like to use your contribution, free, as you intended.
3. As far as my employer is concerned, your contribution, as useful as it is, is not worth GPL-stamping [e.g. opensourcing] 2 million lines of source, millions of dollars he invested into of engineer time, into a product with a competing edge, which is keeping his business afloat. Asking this of my employer, be it fair or not in your view, is unrealistic. He will not commit financial suicide for you. Don't take that as an insult, you wouldn't commit suicide for me either, even if I donated something to you, and I'm perfectly okay with that.
4. The LGPL allows me to take your code, wrap it in a library, and opensource the code of that library alone, not everything [i.e. my employer's entire product] that links to it. My employer uses, My employer gives something [albeit not his head on a silver platter] back to the community. This is what I referred to as fair and compromise.
>> "What do "fair" and "compromise" mean on your planet?"
Does your planet have this thing called "Economy", "Businesses" and "Programmers who have children to feed and thus need an employer to pay them a salary"? Mine does.
5. Being able to use your contribution with no strings attached is what makes your contribution free to him, as opposed to costing him something (even if you view that as free because what he pays never reaches your pocket). The term free [as in beer] is not a result of what you get. It's a result of what it costs him.
Which brings me back to my original post - GPL is free to any members of the OS club. X11/BSD is free to everyone, closed-source software businesses (with which one or two slashdotters may have crossed paths during their careers) as well. And it's you, the contributer, who decides who you want to share with.
Think of a TV ad saying "X if FREE, if only you join our club (which promptly costs money to anyone who's, say, asian)".
Free, eh?
Re:There's a missing fifth fundamental freedom (Score:2)
Yes, the organizations you mentioned do this. Some, like RH, built around it from day one, others, like all the UNIX vendors you mentioned, did it out of a lack of choice, where continuing to compete with the OS world simply started costing them too much, so they went to "If you can't beat them, join them". All the ones you mentioned are the ones who found alternate sources of income. Don't forget the ones
Re:There's a missing fifth fundamental freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
A [quite real] company called Qualystem makes a network-boot suite that allows you to boot Windows XP clients off a UNIX/Linux-based server.
There is no opensource alternative for their product. This is said to emphasize there is neither something wrong with their business model, nor are they on the verge of drowning under free&better OS alternatives like traditional UNIX operating systems or products with opensource counterparts are.
Their business relies SOLELY on selling software. Not service. Not hardware. Just software.
Such a company cannot use so much as a line of GPL code without legally binding themselves to commit suicide, hence for them GPL != free. For them, GPL is the most expensive thing in the world.
Re:There's a missing fifth fundamental freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
First, your point is valid, there is not and cannot be an absolute freedom. The BSD license is also limiting to an extent. I cannot claim I wrote the code for instance. I cannot prevent the author from continuing to give it out for free, even if I relicense the same code and sell it.
For myself, I'm not implying anything other that I'm personally greatly appreciative of having an opensource package called "unzip" with a BSD license, which saved me the need to waste 2 months trying to figure out and imple
Cheap. (Score:2)
Liberty a word you dont hear often enough, reminds me of a qoute.
No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session. - Judge Gideon J. Tucker
Try applying those 4 rules of free software to your life, and realize how many freedoms you dont have.
-
You cant spank a 12 year old, but you can sentance him to death.
One could say ... (Score:2)
... that if some lowlife owns my box and turns it into a spam source, then the value of my PC is being maximised (it certainly isn't being underutilised).
Please define the criteria for 'maximised' then we can talk about it.
Personally, I don't mind that my linux partitions can't do everything (like run ActiveX ... something I err really need) or that I deliberately turn off Flash. Is a server sitting in the corner being 'maximised' if it isn't playing MP3s and showing DVD movies?
Legislate free software into and out of existence? (Score:2, Insightful)
about that dreamweaver comment from article (Score:3, Informative)
Free as in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Free as in $29.95
Seriously though.. I've made a lot of money selling (my) Free Software for $29.95...
I just had the source in CVS. If you were smart enough to checkout via anoncvs and to the build yourself that was fine.
If you needed help and wanted a really nice installer it cost you $29.95...
This let me work on my little project full time which then turned into a company.
We're 7 people now
Re:Free as in... (Score:3, Interesting)
Smart people would like that as well... (Score:3, Interesting)
Our IRS bastards decided to "calculate the value of Free Software as equal to commercial versions" so if you install free Open Office on free Linux, they want you to pay as much tax for increasing the value of equipment as if you purchased WinXP Pro and MS Office.
With one exception. They are helpless if you actually -paid- for the software. You show them a bill from your newspapers stand where you purchased latest issue of "Linux Plus" gazette for equivalent of 2 euro and got 2 CDs wit
Sure... (Score:2, Interesting)
Those aside, I disagree because in most of my day to day activity, free, even open-source programs are not just cheaper (free) but better than the proprietary. Here's a few:
Operating System: BSD and Linux, much better and secure than Windows. More features (bash, gcc), less "features" (
Re:Sure... (Score:4, Informative)
Music - XMMS (WinAMP on Windows), is there even a comparison to Windows Media Player here?
WinAMP ist not FOSS. It's a free (beer) closed source app.
Both are just a joke comparing to iTunes [apple.com].
Video - MPlayer, it even runs without X Window. Can Windows Media Player run video in MS-DOS?
What kind of argument is this? Who cares about DOS? WMP is OK when you install the missing codecs. (I prefer VLC [videolan.org] though)
Web Browser - Mozilla FireFox. Internet Exploder doesn't even compare.
And Opera? [opera.com] Firefox is also my favourite browser, but Opera has many interesting features that you can't find anywhere else. Opera is commercial or free (beer) software, but not FOSS.
File Browsing - Nautilus, Konqueror. They crash 100% less of the time that Windows Explorer crashes.
What are you doing with Explorer? I didn't see it crash the last couple of... er... years.
And no annoyingly built-in Internet Explorer that's available even if I denied access to iexplore.exe (which I do on spyware-infested clients' computers).
How about blocking Explorer.exe and deleting iexplore.exe? (That's what I do when I have do mess with Windows.)
And let's not mention the horrid Mac OS X versions of MS Office.
Yeah, MS Office:mac is sooo bad when compared against GNUmeric and OpenOffice. OK, GNUmeric and OpenOffice only run in an X-Window, don't support drag&drop, looks ugly-as-hell, etc. while MS Office supports all that stuff. Wow, GNUmeric and OpenOffice are soooo superior.....
(BTW: Yes, I know about NeoOffice/J [neooffice.org] - it's my main Office suite. But NeoOffice is != OpenOffice)
Abiword compares to Wordpad, not Word (or OpenOffice Writer).
Instant Messenger - Well, GAIM may be missing some features of proprietary AOL AIM, but one of those features missing is the spyware.
Trillian? [trillian.cc] How about that?
Programming - Do I even need to compare the long list of free, open-source and standardized Unix/Linux tools to the not-quite-as-affordable MS Visual Studio??
A lot of developers say that VisualStudio is the best programming environment. Others say it's Xcode [apple.com]. Both aren't FOSS.
PS: No, I'n not bashing FOSS. Most apps I use are FOSS like Firefox, Thunderbird, or Fire Messenger [sf.net], but theres more closed source software that's better than it's FOSS counterparts than just Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Opera is cool. Trillian is cool. MS Office:mac, Explorer (not IE), or Windows Media Player not so bad either.
Remember what started it all (Score:5, Interesting)
People tend to forget what launched Mr. Stallman on this road toward software freedom: he wanted to use a laser printer he had on hand with his word processing program. The software didn't have drivers, and as I recall the printer didn't have documentation, either.
Big trees from little acorns grow.
Re:Remember what started it all (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Remember what started it all (Score:3, Insightful)
Proprietry only better if you _pay_ for it (Score:3, Insightful)
Those that have forked over $1000+ for specialised proprietry software (Photoshop, Cubase etc) are the ones that have the right to say the features of the Free Software replacements are not up to scratch.
Those who are using warezed versions and have no intention of ever purchasing the software, but say that the Gimp is no Photoshop aren't helping the cause, and show that they have no real interest in advancing the state of Free Software - they just want to get everything for nothing.
Term "free software" hijacked (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been interested in free software for a long time -- that is, software I can acquire today and use for the forseeable future without owing anyone money or other compensation, including requiring registration (even if no fee). To me that's the essential quality of free software. If the source code is there, and if modifications are permitted, that's fine of course and is icing on the cake. The BSD license is beautiful.
But I think the time has come for GNU GPL zealots to realize that if they expect the world to call their brand of "free" the only type of "free", this is just being unrealistic and a bit obnoxious. If you are looking for free software, there is tons of it out there. Most of it you can't modify, sorry. Don't like it? Write your own GNU GPL'd free software. And if you are looking for only GNU GPL'd software, then go look for that exclusively, and stop bothering developers who go out of their way to make no-fee software of other (non-GPL) licenses.
Of course I understand the philosophy behind free/open source software (FOSS) and it's very pretty and everything, but it is just one brand of "free".
Re:Term "free software" hijacked (Score:3, Interesting)
I get to hold on to my trade secrets for Really Cool Ways To Do Stuff that other people haven't thought of, which (despite what open source advocates might say) is definitely a right I have, and a capital asset for any business endeavours I might have. I also gain the ability to profit from modifications I make for other organizations because hey, if there's money to be made by modifying my work of art, then that money
Answer: Politicans and goats. (Score:3, Funny)
Question: What are you willing to sacrifice for those freedoms?
Article is one long troll (Score:3, Insightful)
RMS has dealt with this argument time and time again, explaining why he thinks that freedom is the highest goals of all. And I agree with him.
The world needs more thoughtful idealists like RMS, and even more people who listen to what they say.
I Don't Care; I Want Better Software, Period (Score:3, Insightful)
So long as I can use the damn thing, those other 3 freedoms don't interest me.
I'm interested in using computers. I am not interested in writing code. (It's a parallel to watching TV: We all watch TV, but very few of us are interested in learning how to build a television.) Studying the source is of not interest to me, as is changing it.
As a corollary, I believe the only "community" that exists here is a small number of developers who support free software for ideological and political purposes. Otherwise, free software users are no more a community that are Windows users. (An analogy might the small number of vegetarians who actively lobby to for their dietary beliefs versus all the other folks who simply choose ti eat that way.)
I'm interested in more and better software. If some of that can come from free software developers, fine. If some of that can come from proprietary developers, fine. Frankly, though, little new and innovative software has been coming from either source for several years.
what freedom is (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, my ability to practise Judiasm in the US without fear of persecution typifies "freedom of religion" in the idealistic sense. But a more devout Jew is not necessilary free in a total sense. Employers might not allow days off for Jewish Holidays, or even more important Friday night/Saturdays for the sabbath. Someone may be ridiculed by a co-worker for wearing a kippah. Of course a more devout Jew (which I'm not) could work for a different employer, and only deal with people who accept the way he dresses. (Doesn't this sound familiar... RMS would say you shouldn't work for an employer who makes your write proprietary software.)
The point here is freedom is not something that one person has, but rather is a state of mind between two or more people. If you are accidentially stuck alone on an island, freedom has no meaning. You may not have the *ability* to leave the island, but freedom itself has no context since you are not dealing with other people.
Now taking the island concept further: if you live on an isolated (from the rest of the world) island with friends and family, you could copy / modify / distribute software all you want if its mutually agreed that that's okay. Many people have considered their personal and other friend's/family's computers to be such an island. With the internet though, you are in full contact at all times with people / government / etc. who are set on punishing for such acts.
So keep in mind, you can fight for freedom all you want from a legalistic / systematic / technical / software-based way, but ultimately, freedom is a mutal agreement between people. Whenever someone is out there who is willing to punish you in some extent for what you are doing, you have a noticable reduction in your freedom. Of course, if value your freedom, you then must fight for it.
The obsession to endow software with the concept of freedom is thus misleading. People have freedom, software does not. So GPL-licensed software is *freedom-enabling* software (to a certain extent). Its using copyright law to prevent other people from punishing you.
So as we look towards a revised GPL 3.0, we should really keep in mind separate ideas of "freedom" and "ability". We need the ability to have source code availible in order to modify/understand software many years down the line (even after threat of copyright expires). Just as we need the freedom to create software without the threat of punishment by frivolous software patents.
When looking at the GPL, thus imagine it in two ways:
1) If I isolated, what abilities does the GPL ensure I still have? (access to source code, ability to modify, ability to copy, etc.)
2) As I deal with other people, what punishments am I trying to prevent? (copyright hoops to jump thru, ridiculous licensing restrictions, patent lawsuits)
Re:what freedom is (Score:4, Insightful)
Close, but not quite. Freedom is the absence of restriction. The difference is crucial. Your definition focuses on the consequences of an action, while the dictionary definition focuses on the ability to perform an action.
To add a necessary clarifying point (with regards to that subset of freedom known as liberty), freedom ends where another's freedom begins. In other words, you cannot use freedom to restrict freedom. At the point where you ability begins to restrict another's ability, it ceases to be liberty and is called "privilege".
Copyright infers upon an author many privileges. The only software that is truly free as in having a complete lack of privilege is public domain software. Licensed software is judged by how much privilege it retains (or additionally aquires through contractual agreements) or gives up. Unrestricted licenses like BSD or MIT have the fewest retained privileges, and conseqently the most liberty. Copyleft licenses like the GPL and LGPL enforce a few more privileges and have a bit less liberty. Both, however, are nearly equivalent with regards to most proprietary commercial software.
Man what a stupid article (Score:3, Insightful)
Do I value the 4 freedoms? Hell yeah. How much money would I pay to have those freedoms? Lots, I tell you. Those 4 freedoms are worth more than the cost of a support contract.
Of course, I'm a programmer, so I'm biased. Some people aren't programmers and may not realize the benefits of freedom the way I do. But let's take the example of a friend of mine. She wanted to do some word processing for a report that she had to write. As I worked at Corel at the time, I happened to have a copy of Word Perfect which I gave to her (it's useless to me...). Well, it turns out it was useless to her too. First of all, it was too complicated and confusing for her (She's not a computer person and she didn't need all the features). Secondly the thing was full of bugs on the features that she did need. Constantly, I got calls of "Miiiikee!!!! Fiiiix it!!!!!". I tried to tell her I couldn't, but she didn't understand.
Eventually I got sick of it and replaced it with Abiword. But not stock Abiword. I ripped everything out if it and gave her a stripped down version. Then any time she asked for a new feature, I added it back.
Do I value the 4 freedoms? Hell yeah. Everyday, I program on a Windows box because the market for my latest companies product is Windows. However, I've been tasked with writing portable code (to port to *ix and Mac). To me this means POSIX. But many of the damn POSIX calls in Windows are broken. What the hell do I do? I'm not allowed to fix them. I have to completely rewrite them, or put endless #ifdefs in my code.
But here's the irony of this whole thing. I understand the value of the 4 freedoms. As a consumer, I would never be stupid enough to purchase mission critical software without those freedoms. But....
I can't quite figure out a non-consulting business model that would allow me to give my customers these freedoms. My boss understands the benefit of freedom as well, but doesn't want to be a consultant. So for now, *I* deny my customers these freedoms which I value so highly.
And here is where I disagree with RMS. He feels that it is immoral to continue the above situation. He recommends quitting and becoming a waiter, writing free software on the side. While it is *very* tempting to do this, I'm not going to. Free software will not move into all sectors of commercial development without finding a variety of business models. Michael Tiemann found one excellent and successful business model with Cygnus. Research needs to be done to find others.
Working every day in this moronic proprietary world shows me the problems and gives me incentive to do something about them. Some day I hope everyone can realize the benefits of Free software. Until that day, I'm sure we'll get lots of delusional people who actually think that proprietary is somehow superior (what a bizarre thought). I'm not going to waste my effect trying to tell them they are wrong.
Well Argued? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's like saying that if buying a gun is not important to a particular citizen, then there is no disadvantage to not having a constitutional amendment guaranteeing that right.
Just because fewer than 100% of society doesn't exercise a given right, that in and of itself doesn't make it any less important.
Not being... (Score:3, Interesting)
But to me, freedoms zero and two save a lot of headaches. I do not at all like being restricted in terms of how the software can be used, and if I am truly to love my neighbor as myself, I need to be able to legally share software. What really gets under my skin about a lot of free-beer software that isn't free software is limited redistribution; you can't distribute the Flash plugin with an operating system, even though Macromedia always has and barring going out of business likely always will allow anyone to download it.
That being said, as noted earlier I have compromised and mostly use Mac OS X. It's not free in either definition, and neither is Microsoft Office, but OS X has more free components in its base levels than does Windows, at least. Obviously a GNU-based Linux distro or some free version of BSD would be better in some ways, but on the other hand I like the ease of just being able to turn the bloody computer on and have a working Unix-like OS that can run the best office suite in the world (in terms of file compatibility and reliability).
Barring a piece of nonfree software like CrossOver Office (based on Wine much as OS X is based on *BSD) you can't run Office or QuickTime on a Linux system -- these are nigh essential in the modern world, so I might as well use OS X which has native versions of the above.
There is various other nonfree Windows and Mac software I use as well, but I try to use free software when it fills my needs -- but when it does not, ideology takes a back seat to praticality, and in comes proprietary software.
Education is Also a Factor (Score:4, Insightful)
Another interest I had was in how P2P networks work. I had no experience in network programming, but a firm grasp of C/C++; downloading the source to a Gnutella client and poking around did wonders. When I later had to contribute to a network-based application in college, I found myself ahead thankful for being able to reference functioning, stable code.
While the article makes the (valid) point that many people do not have the ability to easily modify the software they use, this ability doesn't just magically appear from nowhere; it's something that has to be learned. For me, seeing examples of how certain things are implemented is one of the most effective way to learn.
Besides, there's always the allure of knowing that if you're not satisfied with a Free software product, you can pick it up, study the source, and fix it yourself if you're so inclined!
Re:Should I bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
SealBeater
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
Bill, holding my breath.
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
SealBeater
Re:Should I bother? (Score:5, Informative)
1. Web Browsing? Mozilla/Firefox
2. E-mail? Thunderbird or Evolution
3. Group Calendaring? Mozilla Sunbird + Apache/SSL/WebDAV + iCal
4. Audio CD Archiving? Grip + Ogg Vorbis
5. Advanced Media Player? Xine or MPlayer
6. Audio Streaming of Archived CDs? Icecast + Ices
7. Recording of online streams for archival purposes? ALSA + ALSA Utils + Ogg Vorbis + Any required media player format in Xine or MPlayer
8. Firewall? Linux Kernel + iptables
9. Office Functionality? OpenOffice.org
10. Digital Image Editing? GIMP
11. IM Client? GAIM
12. IM Server? Jabberd
13. File sharing? NFS
14. Sane storage management? LVM
15. File compression? BZip2, GZip, or 7Zip also File Roller if you really need a GUI
16. Digital Photo Management? Gthumb or Nautilus
17. PVR? Mythtv.org
18. Video streaming? VLC (Video LAN Client)
19. X10 Home Automation? Bottlerocket
20. Remote desktop/application serving? VNC 4
21. Remote assistance? x0vncserver or the vnc extension for Xorg
22. VPN/Tunneling? OpenVPN or OpenSSH with TCP port forwarding
23. Web Serving? Apache
24. Mail Serving? Courier
25. Server Based Spam Filtering? ASSP
26. Client Based Spam Filtering? Thunderbird
27. Image Scanning? SANE
28. Audio Editing? Rezound or Audacity
29. Multitrack Audio? Ardour
30. MIDI Sequencing? Rosegarden
31. CD Burning (Data and Audio)? cdrecord + various GUI frontends
32. Simple PC Based Puzzle Games? Too many to list from both the GNOME and KDE projects
33. SpyWare/Malware Prevention Removal? None at this point since I don't use the internet via Windows
If I wanted to do all of this with a Windows based home network do you have any idea how much money I'd have to spend to buy commercial software? Sure it's not as easy to set this stuff up as it is in Windows, but that's the price I pay to get this stuf gratis. On the other hand, setting this stuff up in Linux isn't that hard either if you are determined to do it. I would have to say there are plenty of free alternatives and the list above is just a sampling. The only area where I don't find alternatives is games. But I don't play games that much, so it's not much of a deterrent. And *IF* the U.S. ever does outlaw free software, then I guess I'm headed for a life of crime. Crazy that I would even have to think that, isn't it? After all, it's not illegal to own and use a hammer, saw, wood or nails? Just equate your computer hardware with those tools open source code files with the wood and you will see why the concept of trying to outlaw free software is ridiculous.
Re:Should I bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
While the do-it-yourself mechanic can still rebuild an engine, they need an industry built $10,000 diagnostic tool to do it. Likewise, once DRM sets in, we will need to buy expensive licenses in order to work on the new stuff.
I, for one,
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2, Insightful)
But I'm just a student and wonder: if you do it for free how will you eat? And then someone always comes and say: "if doesn't matter, you'll always find a way to get money out of your work."
But WHAT is this way to make a living? And please, don't tell me it's "support", I don't believe it anymore... I agree that you can write OSS in your spare time, but I haven't met anyone who wrote OSS for a living (and I don't want answers like Alan Co
Re:Should I bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to have excluded the set of available answers in the postamble to your questions. A bit like saying "What's the capital of France?" and then saying "Please don't say Paris".
There are many top flight coders who work for companies like IBM, HP, Sun, etc. (eg, Andrew Tridgell, Jeremy Allison, and so on). They all get paid to write F/OSS. But you don't have to be an uber-coder to get into that game. If you work for a reasonable enlightened company [yes, there are a few], they can see that most of the software generated internally has no value as a sales proposition. So get them to release it as free software. Explain that it means that the cost of developing new software will drop, because you can now use and redistribute the work of all the other coders.
Bang - suddenly you're developing OSS for a living. Maybe you do helpdesk other parts of the time, or are a tech support guy. So what? It's still code. The more there is of it, the more it'll get used.
Hell, even the stuff which I've written and been ashamed of is useful - because it let's people know how not to do something!
--Ng
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
Re:Should I bother? (Score:5, Interesting)
Where I currently work, we have strong, well-understood and well-followed processes that result in higher-quality code - source control, design and code reviews, requirements gathering, etc.
Too often in a project "done for love" these things get ignored (yes - that happens very often when done for money too). That's because (a) setting these things takes time away from the fun part of the project and (b) often the person doing the project for love just doesn't understand the need for it or (as in my case) isn't disciplined enough to do it without a framework in place (both process and social).
There are examples and counter-examples all over the place - I'm just saying don't be blind to the idea that work done for pay can be superior.
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
Hmm.. how'zat work when you love money?
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
Re:Should I bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
Other people sell support contracts and customisations. Because I demand a cut of the support contract fee, I get paid. If I released it under the GPL, I could not make that demand.
Oh yes, I don't want to do the customisations and support myself. My skills lie elsewhere.
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
Similarly, you should still be able to demand a cut of support fees: the support people will probably have to talk to the developers & may even ask them for maintenance releases. If you have a low demand product, no one
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
Then what version would people want?
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
Re:Should I bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
False dichotomy. There isn't an either/or except in your premise that you wouldn't have written software were it to be free.
I too write software for a living. People pay me to do it. It's also free software - because it falls below the value line for closed source software for my employer [along with at least 95% of all software written in the company].
I have also written software which has nothing to do with my employer. I do it for the love of it. There are many others in the world with a similar view. I would write software even if I didn't get paid to do it - sure, I'd need another job to keep body and soul together, but I'd still hack.
Anyway, why wouldn't people pay you if it was free software - do you only code for people who sell the software afterwards as proprietary? Most software (95%+) is generated for internal use - so it generally makes sense to release it as free software. Because then it reduces the amount of code the purchaser needs for any new products. The more free code there is generally, the cheaper software production gets in total.
--Ng
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
More than 80% of the software written never goes on the store racks; it's custom-made for a particular purpose for a specific customer. The customer wants software that works and he pays you to write it. Now, whatever licence you distribute your works with don't matter: you get paid anyway. It'll be free software if you grant the 4 freedoms to your customer, no matter what, you get paid anyway.
You wrote some code, and you got paid, get it?
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
I can demand to get a cut from support contracts for supplying the basis. I don't want to do the customisations myself.
Re:Should I bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
Free software is not about getting something for nothing - it is about your rights, and freedoms and ability to do whatever and use however free software in any way you see fit.
Consider the many companies that sell free software- eg - lin
Who modded that nonsense up? (Score:2)
Re:Should I bother? (Score:3, Interesting)
I develop software for a living. People pay me.
If it was non-free software, people wouldn't pay me because they would feel threatened by a binary only implementation locking them in to a solution they couldn't change.
There are no closed alternatives because it is all custom code.
Free software or no-software. They would rather have free software they paid me to write.
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
SealBeater
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
SealBeater
Re:Should I bother? (Score:2)
I've looked. The people who supply and support my software would love to keep the bit they pay me for themselves.
This software is incredibly obscure with about 10 possible customers in the world. Its not like I'm developing a text editor.
Re:Four freedoms vs Max use? (Score:5, Interesting)
You may also want to look at Mozilla, Firefox, Kmail (which, IMO, is the best graphical mail client ever coded), The GIMP, the FreeBSD networking stack and ipfw. These are all bits of open source software that I use on a daily basis that are "in-my-face" and noticeable. They are also the reason I would be lost without my open source OS, along with the myriad other packages running out of sight and mind that keep my computing and networking ticking over without a hitch. Being free hasn't cost me anything, so I guess I'm not qualified to comment...
Re:Four freedoms vs Max use? (Score:3, Insightful)
Dude, you are preaching to the choir. I am a full on linux junky and have been for many years. But tell me, who's the fool: My boss (who has been in the computer business for 30 years) who is given a perfectly capable dual boot(linux/xp) laptop and asks me how do view a dvd under linux OR my wife with fuckall computer experience who can buy an ATHF dvd off ebay, stick it into her XP laptop and be watching it (with sound) inside of 10
Re:Four freedoms vs Max use? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're right, of course. Folks don't want to spend an hour compiling things, and this is where Big Bill and the TC mob have the upper hand. They just want to slam the DVD in the hole and get the latest drivel on the screen and to hell with privacy and control. Me? I like knowing I'm in control. With FOSS, I am. With XP and Media Player who knows who is pushing the damn buttons? Have you ever run a tcpdump on a router supplying a virgin XP SP2 machine with connectivity? It's all subjective.
In a way, FOSS has forced me to learn a bit more about what I'm using. It now takes me ten minutes to install a fully functional Kaffeine using libxine on a FBSD box. When I first tried with gmplayer on Slackware, it took me two days full-on geeky head-in-the-Makefile messing and that's without getting X working in the first place. My family now happily do all the things they once did on Windows on a FreeBSD desktop system, replicated from my own desktop after each upgrade, which is far easier than keeping XP updated. The subjective here is have I lost or gained? Me? I reckon I've gained. Of course, the AMD64 helps with the wall time figure I just quoted
Re:Four freedoms vs Max use? (Score:3, Insightful)
Dingdingdingdingding
We have a winner.
There's no reason to claim that all proprietary software has better UI than FOSS, nor that no FOSS has excellent normal user intuitive UIs. However, there is a huge gap between average UI experien
Re:Four freedoms vs Max use? (Score:3, Informative)
All these but mplayer were rpm installs, so it's pretty easy. Mplayer is also not too hard to compile but takes time on a
Re:Four freedoms vs Max use? (Score:3, Insightful)
This four freedoms discussion is more interesting if we're talking about whether to use Photoshop on Mac OS X over the GIMP or whether we're comparing Oracle on some proprietary Unix over postgresql or mysql on GNU/Linux.
Re:Four freedoms vs Max use? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Four freedoms vs Max use? (Score:3, Informative)
By contrast, I have twice screwed my Red Hat linux box which I use for testing and development because I am unfamiliar with the system. This, coupled with the fact that I am unfamiliar with the install, means it takes about 10 hours to get it back to a useful stat
Re:FTA? Same to you, pal (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I am so sick of this crap (Score:4, Insightful)
Simply by saying that you probably dont realise quite how much influence free software is changing the world its not some small bunch of hippies with some ideal to legalise pot. If free software and those that extoll the virtues of it did not exist your world would probably be very different. Have you ever used google ? have you ever looked at a website running on linux/bsd/apache ? ever downloaded a bittorrent file? or ripped a dvd?
The chances are that you have - and all of these things were made possible to you by people excercising their right to create, use and modify free software.
Free software people dont "want" to change the world, they "are" changing the world - and the chances are my friend that you have benefitted from it in many many ways. And ask yourself this question
Re:Being Free is Hard to Do (Score:2, Insightful)
I would argue that without sacrifices we cannot achieve freedom. It seems to me that the sacrifices the FSF are asking us to make are significantly less than those made by our ancestors.
That said, I do agree with the basic premise of the article that we often need to use proprietary software to achieve our needs. The solution is better free software - not giving up th
Re:Well, let's see (Score:3, Insightful)
So just because you dont understand or have the ability to modify code its a non-issue? How about the fact that it is modifiable and can be changed by someone who does understand and modify free software can do so? Your should care that software is freely modifiable because you will be t
Re:Easy Question (Score:2)