Insufficiently free?

Posted Dec 19, 2007 20:03 UTC (Wed) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]

> Richard Stallman made some statements that people proved to be wrong,
> taking away the initial reason given to not consider OpenBSD free enough.

I don't think this is true.  RMS's statement is that the OpenBSD ports system contains ports
for non-free software.  That is a fact that is not in dispute.  In his OPINION, that equates
to OpenBSD recommending non-free software, so he chooses not to recommend OpenBSD.  There is
no "proving" that RMS's OPINION is wrong, unless you prove that the facts that he used to form
his opinion are wrong--and they are not.

Of course anyone is free to THINK that RMS's opinions are wrong, just as much as he is free to
have them.  But, there's no reason why he should be blamed for not "admitting" he is wrong
when nothing that was said changes the facts.  Flaming him for not changing his mind simply
because you think he should is not a reasonable response.

Actually I can't understand why the OpenBSD folks care whether RMS recommends their software
in the first place.  They obviously almost universally despise the man out of all proportion
to any affront he's done to them.  Sometimes I think that deep down they just enjoy flaming
for flaming's sake.  Breaks up the monotony of coding I guess.  Certainly they're far from
alone in this.

As far as I can tell, RMS's positions are internally consistent.  Just because they don't
always inform the real-world "grey areas" most of us wrestle with doesn't mean that he's a
hypocrite.

Posted Dec 19, 2007 20:10 UTC (Wed) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]

Richard Stallman made some statements that people proved to be wrong, taking away the initial reason given to not consider OpenBSD free enough. If he would had admit his wrong then, there would be no news, but as he didn't and apparently continued discussing/arguing, Theo de Raadt had enough of it and started flaming him.

RMS said that he does not recommend OpenBSD because its ports systems includes specific instructions/code to install specific pieces of non-free software. No one disputes this fact as far as I can tell, although of course people can disagree with his conclusion.

What you are referring to instead, is people going after tangential points, such as the imprecision of his phrasing that the ports system "includes" non-free software (he responded here). They also attacked other points even less relevant to his position—statements that he explicitly disclaimed he wasn't sure of, e.g. whether OpenBSD includes binary firmware blobs (he was happy to hear that they don't) or whether the OpenSSH license is GPL-compatible (he said he couldn't remember, but that it didn't matter to him because it was free software).

Whether it is ethical to recommend non-free software, or give instructions on how to use it with your system, is an issue over which reasonable people can disagree, of course. (And, like many disagreements about ethics, ultimately seems to be a difference in value systems rather any factual/logical disagreement.) But let's not stoop to rhetorical tricks.

Posted Dec 20, 2007 17:22 UTC (Thu) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link]

In practice, it's not that easy. The mindset that makes for a good developer appears to be exactly the opposite of that which makes for a social, tolerent and non-hostile individual. It is unclear if fixing the mind bug will break the developer capability. It's very possible. This leads to a difficult conundrum - would fixing the mental bug create a regression far worse than the bug itself?

If the answer is yes, then nothing can be done on the side of the verbally abusive developer without making things worse. Rather, the solution lies in a beter protocol handler on the part of those communicating with such developers. It's an ugly hack, but nothing better has appeared on the horizon. I would argue that Theo is probably in this category, that his aggressive, anti-social, monomaniac attitude is actually critical to his phenomenal talent as a programmer, that attempting to change him would be a disaster in the making. It's not behaviour I like or would normally encourage, but in his case it is an inevitable consequence of his particular type of genius and so I actually encourage people to make an effort to assist him in being as true to himself as possible.

In some cases, the answer will be no, but the developer won't apply the necessary fixes. In other words, fixing their behaviour won't harm anything, but they're not prepared to make those changes. A developer who won't fix a known bug in the system they can change the easiest (themselves) probably shouldn't be trusted to fix anything else and should therefore not be given so much power on mailing lists.

Finally, there will be developers who do patch their own attitudes. They may still not be who we'd like, but credit should be given for the development done and the bug fixed, no different from any other bug fix of high importance.