quick review

Posted Feb 14, 2003 13:08 UTC (Fri) by mwilck (guest, #1966) [Link]

It depends what you mean by "better". Of course, the GPL freedoms add values and usefulness to everyone (you can share the program legally with others, you can improve it to suit your needs, you can have independent parties scrutinize it).

It is not clear to me to which extent ESR is not talking about these added values when he says "free software is better". I suspect a to very little extent - he means "technically better", nothing but, in the sense in which Bitkeeper is better than CVS and Microsoft Word better than Kword. This is what many non-technical users will probably also do, especially because it hardly matters to them if copying stuff is legal or not.

I think it is possible to convey the benefits of free software to non-technical users, too. A democratic constitution gives its citizens a lot of rights many of them never exert - nevertheless it seems to be clear that people still appreciate that they have these rights.

Just repeating the message "free software is technically better" without talking about the additional freedoms is dangerous. You may convince more people in the short run, but you risk to loose them when they come to believe that proprietary software is technically superior.

Posted Feb 16, 2003 0:25 UTC (Sun) by socket (guest, #43) [Link]

You make some good points. I've often found myself describing the difference between Raymond and Stallman in terms of pragmatism vs. ideology, knowing that it oversimplifies. I like your explanation of the more subtle points.

To address a part of your comment:

The non-technical end users have no use for the source themselves, and must therefore be convinced that there is a use to them to the source being available to those who what it; the open source message seems more effective than the free software message at this.

I disagree that end users have no use for source. My girlfriend's started using Linux recently, and doesn't do programming (yet. Perhaps she might, at some point, but it doesn't much matter.) When things go wrong on her Windows partition, there's not much I can do - I'm thoroughly unfamiliar with Windows anymore, and often all you can really do is uninstall and reinstall and hope the bug goes away. When something goes wrong on her Linux system, it's much easier to track down and fix. I haven't had to dig into source code yet to fix anything on her system (though I have on my own) but I'm much happier simply having that option. And she's much happier knowing that it can probably be fixed.

I'm certainly not the best programmer, though. But if I can't fix it, I can find someone more competent who can. A large benefit of running free software is that developers are more open to listening to their users, when it's a polite, informed question or bug report. Until more companies read The Cluetrain Manifesto and take it to heart, commercial software will be at a disadvantage because of the iron gate between developers and users. Even if nobody I know can fix it, given the source code, the relationship between users and developers is more often such that bug reports often do some good, and are likely to get fixed faster than in commercial software - I find that free software developers typically have an attachment to their project and their code that you don't find in commercial software; it's something they made because they need it, and care about it, and it's rare to have the same kind of interest in an employer's project than one you work on of your own incentive.

I think pragmatism and idealism are both necessary elements to the quality and success of free software. The fact is, people care about it.

I tend to refer to "free software" more often than "open source," but I generally mean the same thing by it. I think it's good that both Eric Raymond and Richard Stallman exist, because different people will gravitate toward different ideologies. The companies may have come to free software via Eric Raymond's publicization, and many would like to not fully embrace Stallman's strong stance on what that should mean, but on the whole, I'm happier that these companies are more free than they used to be. I may philosophically feel closer to Stallman, but I'd rather have partially free than non-free.

Posted Feb 20, 2003 19:37 UTC (Thu) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

THIS PRAGMATISM VS IDEALISM IS JUST CRAP!!

They are the same! Idealism without pragmatism would be like in a perpetual dream, and pragmatism without idealism could not happen, because it would not have a conceptual blueprint, a point of start...I think that in a common sense (not philosofical) people tend to be just like that, "balanced". But is also true that the "idealism" or concept of "pure" materialism tend to view itself as without any form of idealism, silly ins't it?...

SO, JUST LET US TRY TO CUT THE CRAP, IT ONLY REFLECTS THE ANGER IN US, AND IT WONT SOLVE ANY PROBLEMS...