Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail) [LWN.net]

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Jul 31, 2003 16:57 UTC (Thu) by dooglio (guest, #2604) [Link]

Good article. I will have to use these points the next time I'm talking to someone about
Linux.

***

I have to say one thing--I think assigning the word "free" to Linux does do harm some
times, particularly when talking to lay people.

I was at the Government Technical Conference in Sacramento, California this year,
and woman from the Hummingbird booth (of Exceed fame) came by our booth (the
Linux Users Group of Davis) to offer us demo discs of their software. She asked what
we were all about, and I told her about GNU/Linux, and that it is a "totally free"
operating system. Boy did she react negatively, stopping short of calling me a
communist. "You guys are against anyone making money with software." Ugh. I tried
to explain that you can make plenty of money with Linux. I pointed out that companies
like Cynus Software, Red Hat and IBM have been using Linux to further their profits.
But she still seemed unimpressed. I think she was laboring under a false notion that
everyone involved with Linux and open source in general must somehow be
anti-captialist.

The point is not that GNU/Linux is free as in it doesn't cost money. Actually, it does
cost in terms of expertise and time--nothing is really free, afterall. The point is that you
are "totally free" to use the GNU/Linux operation system in any way you wish, to install
it on a myriad of machines, get into the source code and customize the heck out of it.
There are no licence agreements or legalities involved (other than the
very-easy-to-understand GPL) to restrict your use. You can use LGPLed software in
your own proprietary libraries, in fact.

Of course, I only thought of this response days later. I consider it a learning
experience, for sure. :-) I'm not sure what a good replacement for the word "free" might
be for the lay person, but we need to spell out that the OS is really "restriction free,"
and try to dispell the myth that we open source advocates are communists and
somehow un-american... :-)

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Jul 31, 2003 17:31 UTC (Thu) by jdthood (guest, #4157) [Link]

> I think she was laboring under a false notion that everyone
> involved with Linux and open source in general must somehow
> be anti-captialist.

Few if any people in the community are against the free market system.
RMS has the most radical views, and even those go only so far as to
say that software should not be ownable.

> I'm not sure what a good replacement for the word "free"
> might be for the lay person, but we need to spell out that
> the OS is really "restriction free"

You've just come up with a good replacement. :)

Good but incorrect...

Posted Jul 31, 2003 20:28 UTC (Thu) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

Linux is not restriction-free: it is Livre, Libre, free as in "free speech", Free
Software. But not restriction-free.
You COULD say it's objection-free, tough :-)

Good but incorrect...

Posted Aug 1, 2003 10:08 UTC (Fri) by jdthood (guest, #4157) [Link]

I think that a better replacement would be 'open' --
not 'open source' but simply 'open'. 'Open' is a warm,
fuzzy term that connotes both the openness of the source
_and_ the openness of the possibilities to use, study,
modify and distribute. _And_ the open-endedness of the
movement, its openness to participants, and so on. Of
course, the term might be open to abuse.

Good but incorrect...

Posted Aug 3, 2003 2:20 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Your definition of "open" requires the listener interpret it the same way that you do. It's rampantly exploitable. Shared Source lets (a few) people see (some bits of) code. Sound's "open" to me.

How does "open" connote "the openess of the possiblity to [...] distribute"?
Kinda stretching it there, aren't you ;p

What good is "open" software without the freedom to modify it and redistribute modified versions?

"Unfettered" is a pretty good replacement to "Free" but in the end, it's the freedom that's important.

Ciaran O'Riordan

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Jul 31, 2003 18:04 UTC (Thu) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

Of course, holding leftist or communistic political views is just as American as any other... since last time I checked the Constitution still allowed that... and of course people elsewhere in the world really don't care whether they're un-American or not (especially places like the PRC, I suspect...) so in a global marketplace that's not very relevant. The anti-Linux forces are looking more and more to me like protectionists.

And if "capitalism" means the process of earning a living by selling the fruits of your labor (whether those fruits be a service provided or a physical product) and reaping a just price thereby, no problem. But if it means screwing people over through monopoly power and onerous legal extortion as a standard method of conducting business, yes, I am anti-capitalist. I guess some people just can't stand the thought that somewhere, someone doesn't have financial gain as their primary motivating value.

[Note that the above paragraphs do not necessarily give any indication of my own personal views on political systems--I am in fact a U.S. voter whose registered political affiliation is "Decline to State". It keeps a lot of stupid junk mail out of my mailbox in the autumn...] :-)

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Aug 1, 2003 0:36 UTC (Fri) by Peter (guest, #1127) [Link]

Boy did she react negatively, stopping short of calling me a communist. "You guys are against anyone making money with software."

Well, Hummingbird's entire product line focuses on bringing Unix functionality to Windows. Kinda hard to make money doing that if everyone switches to Linux. (: Perhaps that's why your visitor got defensive.

Hmmm, there's also the interesting aspect that a lot of Hummingbird software directly derives from free software (BSD and X.org, specifically). I wonder if your visitor knew that.

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Aug 1, 2003 6:50 UTC (Fri) by jdthood (guest, #4157) [Link]

Yes, she was probably feeling a little threatened.

You could have told her that companies like hers are going
UP AGAINST THE WALL when the revolution comes.

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Aug 1, 2003 12:55 UTC (Fri) by Peter (guest, #1127) [Link]

companies like hers are going UP AGAINST THE WALL when the revolution comes.

Hehe. Yeah, that's basically what I meant, although I didn't think to put it quite that way. (:

Come to think of it, I have to thank Hummingbird Software. It was the, ahem, suboptimal handling of file locking in their NFS client software several years ago that allowed me to get Samba in the door at my last job. (And this was after we had paid for a bunch of Hummingbird client licenses. It didn't work with our main application, so I had to find a solution that did.)

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Aug 1, 2003 14:33 UTC (Fri) by bajw (subscriber, #11712) [Link]

I saw someone (don't recall who, but likely here at LWN) recently use a phrase I enjoyed. It was something to the effect of "Linux -- Putting the 'Free' back in Free Enterprise". That struck me as a great phrase that really hits the nail on the head in just a few words. I suggested to Copyleft and Think Geek that slogans like that on T-shirts might be a good idea. I know I would wear it to work and want people to see it.

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Aug 3, 2003 2:08 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Some other useful points and come backs for in future:

RMS says "Unfettered" is a one replacement for "free".

Communism is about central controll, Free Software is the opposite.

> The point is that you [...can] get into the source code
> and customize the heck out of it

It's not really important that _you_ can change the code, it's that _everyone_ can change the code (and distribute altered versions). We have to remember to think as a community. I'm a programmer but I don't have time to hack GNOME so the freedom to hack GNOME is not much use to me. Other members of the community do have time to hack GNOME, and I benefit. (and the GNOME developers benefit from the work I do on GNU Grub and acct.)

Un-American?
We're giving software to *all* Americans without asking for a single thing in return. You can also point out that GNU/Linux creates a free market, which allows good old American Capitalist competition. (M$ isn't capitalist, it's more dictatorial).

I hope some of these come in handy.
Ciaran O'Riordan
(not an American)

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Aug 5, 2003 19:45 UTC (Tue) by MLKahnt (subscriber, #6642) [Link]

Just a clarification - Communism isn't about central control, anymore than Capitalism is about massive payments to corporate CEOs. Both have proven to be tools in the process of moving to eventual economic profiles that each pursues, but Marxian theory envisions the eventual transfer of control to collective direction by the workers, after the passing of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" that was considered necessary to re-orient society.

I'm not convinced that either system stands massively over the other in morality or economic efficiency. I do know that with many public corporations, there is comparable democracy in choosing Boards of Directors as there is in electing Communist-led legislatures.

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Aug 6, 2003 1:47 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

> Communism isn't about central control

I'll rethink my argument for next time.

thanks for the nod.
Ciaran O'Riordan

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Aug 1, 2003 10:54 UTC (Fri) by cdyson37 (guest, #12102) [Link]

You gotta appreciate the irony of accusing someone in the free-software community of
patenting their own software. Especially when they're trying to promote that software. :-)

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Aug 1, 2003 12:49 UTC (Fri) by Peter (guest, #1127) [Link]

You gotta appreciate the irony of accusing someone in the free-software community of patenting their own software.

Well, it's not like free software people don't patent software. Some do. Red Hat caused a bit of a ruckus last year for announcing a few patents related to ext3 and such (and insisting that they would license them freely for use in free software). Raph Levien has claimed that he owns some patents for graphics algorithms (I think it was) and has argued in favor of patent pools for free software.

You don't like software patents, I don't like software patents, but so long as they are legal in certain jurisdictions, it is no bad thing to have a portfolio for defensive purposes.

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Aug 1, 2003 15:45 UTC (Fri) by jdthood (guest, #4157) [Link]

I wonder if patents could be used to reinforce software freedom in a
similar way to the way in which copyrights are used in the GPL.
A general public patent license would license an idea for use in
free software and not otherwise. Such patents could be accumulated
and used to counterthreaten any software patent holder who attacks
free software authors. The true objective would be to make any such
patent holder cross-license with the free software community.

(Etymological note: 'patent' derives from the Latin 'to be open'
which is the sense the word has in 'patently obvious'.)

Don't be afraid: Linux is good for you (Globe and Mail)

Posted Aug 1, 2003 21:16 UTC (Fri) by Peter (guest, #1127) [Link]

I wonder if patents could be used to reinforce software freedom in a similar way to the way in which copyrights are used in the GPL.

Yeah, that's more or less what people mean by "patent pools". The idea is that anyone who wants to participate must license all of his own patents to the whole pool for free - a massive blanket cross-licensing agreement with anyone who cares to sign up.

That plan does cause certain philosophical difficulties, such as what happens if a free software package uses a pool-licensed patent - it is no longer really free for companies not in the pool. So an extension to the patent pool idea would be that patents in the pool would also be automatically freely licensed for use in any properly-licensed body of code (where "properly-licensed" might mean "OSI-approved-license" or "OSL-compatible" or whatever). Which seems to be what you're driving at.

The pool thing probably won't catch on because it is by nature even more viral than the GPL, in that it affects all of a company's art. But what can I say, I like the notion.