Where are the RMSs of the world?

Posted Sep 29, 2013 17:27 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

If we “go back to the starting point” then we should probably go back to The GNU Manifesto and the infamous printer problem.

Manifesto says it quite clearly: So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free.

Free software movement starts with the idea that proprietary software is not just something practically problematic, but something ethically so awful that it needs to be eliminated. He later debated the fact that he's using proprietary systems to develop GNU but concluded that it's acceptable as long as he only uses proprietary system to develop free replacement:

22. two_front_teeth: Suppose your doctor told you that you needed a medical procedure to survive but that the procedure would require inserting a device inside of your body which ran proprietary software. Would you be willing to have the procedure done to save your life?

RMS: The only way I could justify this is if I began developing a free replacement for that very program. It is ok to use a nonfree program for the purpose of developing its free replacement.

And this is what free software is all about. It's not about producing some software which anyone can take and tinker with. It's about complete elimination of proprietary software. That's goal is too large thus GNU project does not try to eliminate all the proprietary software from all areas of life but it aims to eliminate them from the realms of operation systems: GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of competition. You will not be able to get an edge in this area, but neither will your competitors be able to get an edge over you.

Now, for the “open source software”. If you'll read what Stallman writes about it you'll see that it accuses it's followers because they “miss the point of Free Software”. Note which words are used there, BTW: We in the free software movement don't think of the open source camp as an enemy; the enemy is proprietary (nonfree) software… Proprietary add-on software and partially nonfree GNU/Linux distributions find fertile ground because most of our community does not insist on freedom with its software.

So the left goalpost is as following: “free software camp” is at war (where else do you talk about enemies?) and it's goal is complete elimination of proprietary software. Remember that GNU does not endorse Debian GNU/Linux because people can readily learn about these nonfree packages by browsing Debian's online package database and Fedora because it makes an exception for certain kinds of nonfree firmware. Obviously the usefullness of the OS is not important if it means that freedom of saoftware is compromised.

Now for the right goalpost. “Open source camp” does not have a leader similar to Stallman, but if anything can serve as it's manifesto it's The Cathedral and the Bazaar which simply states that “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” which immediately puts to the rest an idea that proprietary software is somehow evil. No, it's not evil, it's just inferior. And it's inferior for the simple reason that not enough “eyeballs” are seeing it's source code. Which basically means that proprietary software makes perfect sense if the only way to get enough “eyeballs” is to pay for them (games are typical example). In a way his accusation about “missing the point” are true: “open source camp” is all about best software, not about free software.

In my view the failure of GPLv3 to succeed universally is as much about knowledge and Linus Torvalds as anything else.

Of course. But if you take a look on GPLv3 from “free software camp” POV then it's obviously better weapon than GPLv2 and that means everyone should upgrade. People from “open source camp” (and Linus is quite obviously one of them) note that it's trying to make software to be a “weapon of mass opinion” and usually refuse to participate in said war.

Now, you seem (willfully?) to want to pollute that discussion with the departure from FSF and GNU for some high profile developers.

No. I want to point out that even maintainers of GNU software (who must be more-or-less by definition in “free software camp”) are not all that ready to make their software to be a “weapon of mass opinion”.

It just as well an be about copyright transfer aversion, the fact that important tools like git and cmake are not in the GNU stack, and some strong minded developers that like to go their own way rather than fit in in a larger community.

No, it' not about git (GNU does not like git, but it certainly allows it's use—look here, for example) and not about CMake (gnutls still does not use CMake, after all). It's about strong-minded persons, yes, but not about developers:

(a) I felt particularly frustrated when FSF (when gnutls started around 2000) was insisting the transfer of the copyright to it, even though I had decided to transfer the copyright to FSFE (this is a very old issue but it had great influence on me as I realized that the transfer of rights was not simply for protection against copyright violations).
(b) The feeling of participation in the GNU project is very low, as even expressing a different opinion in the internal mailing lists is hard if not impossible.
(c) There is no process for decision making or transparency in GNU. The only existing process I saw is "Stallman said so" (this may not be bad, unless some threshold of disagreement has been reached - but then it is fair to be able to disassociate myself from the project).

But the practical trigger which driven the exodus was GPLv3 relicensing: one of the very first things GnuTLS project did after exodus was switch back to LGPL2.1+ for libraries (programs were kept under GPLv2 because they are not embedded in other programs). Which is obviously an anathema for “free software soldiers” who insist that you should use GPL for libraries, not LGPL (and as we've seen before GPLv3, not GPLv2).

You have a fair argument about many choosing GPLv2+ over GPLv3+, but that has probably everything to to with the fact that v2 and v3 are incompatible. It dos *not* mean that those same developers are less freedom loving.

Yes, it does. Or rather perhaps that they have different definition of freedom and said definition may not have complete elimination of proprietary software as a natural goal.

Now you saw documentation that Debian sees a strong growth for copy-left (even exponentially?), and your answer is that Debian is not where the action is at.

It's one explanation, but there are another one. Thanks for reminding me. As you've noted most people really lack the knowledge which means that if they want to pick GPL for a new project they most likely will pick GPLv3 simply because it's the “latest and greatest one”. What we should really look to see if people support “free software camp” or “open source camp” is number of projects which used GPLv2+ and switched to GPLv3+. Out of large, high-profile projects only GNU projects and Samba did such switch, but it'll be interesting to see how many smaller projects did that.

Both Qt and Mono uses copy-left licensing.

Which is important for them because they sell Qt and Mono under proprietary licenses, too. Which is far from “free software camp”'s idea that “proprietary software must die” as one can imagine.

On graphical drivers we already see clear signs (lack op copy-left there has little to do with lack of freedom love.

WTH does “freedom love” has to do with anything? “Free Software” is about quite particular freedom: “freedom from proprietary software”. One may argue that it's similar to infamous Apple's freedom from porn, but it does not change the fact that it's central to the idea of “Free Software”. Sometimes guys from “free software camp” are doing tactical concessions and even offer their software under quite liberal licenses (hey, RMS himself wrote It is wise to make some of the Ogg Vorbis code available for use in proprietary software, so that commercial companies doing proprietary software will use it, and help Vorbis succeed in competition with other formats that would be restricted against our use.) but all these things are justified as tactical movements with the end goal still the same: complete elimination of proprietary software. Somehow I don't see Luc Verhagen and Rob Clark as guys who will advocate this goal.