Non-free software is divisive and harmful. [LWN.net]

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 15, 2006 1:36 UTC (Thu) by bignose (subscriber, #40)
Parent article: Google Earth for Linux

> The simple fact is, however, that Google has not done us any harm by making
> a non-free Google Earth available.

If by "us" you mean the free software community, I dispute this "fact".

To gain access to this software, users must either agree to betray their neighbour by not helping them, or pretend to agree and then breach the software copyright. Both actions undermine the spirit of our community, and that's a real harm. If it's done to "have a little fun", that doesn't make it better.

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Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 15, 2006 6:05 UTC (Thu) by zlynx (guest, #2285) [Link] (5 responses)

You're on crack.

If using this software is some sort of "betrayal" of our brothers in software, then it is the users of the software doing the harm, not Google.

Of course, in my world, suppliers of drugs, guns, booze, fast cars and software have no responsibility to or for their customers, beyond providing accurate information about their products.

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 15, 2006 6:24 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

I believe bignose is referring to some of the clauses in the extensive
user agreement. I admit I did not like all of them, either, but was too
lazy to really consider them all.

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 15, 2006 7:35 UTC (Thu) by bignose (subscriber, #40) [Link] (3 responses)

Your analogy to a non-free software vendor as an addictive drug vendor is quite apt. Your stated opinion, that such vendors have no responsibility for the harm they introduce in the community they push their product into, leaves not much more to discuss.

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 15, 2006 16:05 UTC (Thu) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] (2 responses)

Nothing is free. The sooner you understand that the less divisive you will be to the community. Somewhere, somehow somebody is paying. In the case of something like Google Earth the cost is almost certainly significantly more money then most of us will see in a lifetime.

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 22, 2006 13:59 UTC (Thu) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link] (1 responses)

>Nothing is free. The sooner you understand that the less divisive you will be to the community.

I'm not sure what community you are referring to here, since you previously stated yourself:

"Your community perhaps. Certainly not mine."

You then claimed your right to use proprietary software as an individual is one of aspects of freedom too.
But now you say that being less divisive by having everyone use that (practical) proprietary software would tighten the community, which implies this would be a good thing.

You are not consistent, unless you claim that being non-divisive when it suits you in your divisiveness is yet another side of your own personal freedom, which roughly translates to,
"A community is a good thing, as long as it caters to my needs."

That is a valid opinion, but it would be nice if you could call a spork a spork.

>Somewhere, somehow somebody is paying.
Yes. In this case Google is.

>In the case of something like Google Earth the cost is almost certainly significantly more money then most of us will see in a lifetime.

or, alternatively:
In the case of something like a complete modern operating system the cost is almost certainly significantly more money then most of us will see in a lifetime.

Yes, probably.

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 27, 2006 14:47 UTC (Tue) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link]

I'm entirely consistent. Alas it is in your best interest to think otherwise.

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 15, 2006 6:37 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link] (2 responses)

Actually, the people who feel that way will simply refrain from using Google Earth.

One could argue that the mere existence of Google Earth make it likely that some fall for the temptation to call it "good enough" and refrain from contributing towards a free program.

But I find that highly unlikely, it's obvious to everyone I suspect how much more useful a free program would be, if anything I think Google Earth shows some people exactly how useful and thus make it *more* likely they'll contribute to a free version.

The dataset is many orders of magnitude more valuable, and many orders of magnitude more work to gather and maintain than the viewer by the way. The real coup would be to get one or more of the many government-owned mapping-organisations to release their data under a free license. Arguably that data has already been bougth and paid for by the tax-payers.

In the sharpest area, the resolution is such that 1 pixel represents 10x10 cm (around 4x4 inches), that is sufficient that you can make out individual people. A single square km at this resolution is 100 megapixel and probably take up around 5-10 MB.

There are 150 million square kilometres, so in total this would be a dataset of around 750 - 1500 TB.

The dataset behind Google Earth is however nowhere near complete, this resolution is only available for most densely populated areas, and not even everywhere there. A guess is Google migth have 100 TB of data for Google Earth.

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 16, 2006 11:42 UTC (Fri) by cpm (guest, #3554) [Link] (1 responses)

"The dataset is many orders of magnitude more valuable, and many orders of magnitude more work to gather and maintain than the viewer by the way. The real coup would be to get one or more of the many government-owned mapping-organisations to release their data under a free license. Arguably that data has already been bougth and paid for by the tax-payers."

Wholly agree.

This is a real buggaboo imho. There are dozens if not hundreds of
(wholly)taxpayer funded GIS projects either started or matured every
year, who owns the data? And yes, you can be certain that someone
owns it.

Right now, I'm aware of a not-for-profit that might be shutting down.
they have gigabytes of GIS databases, that various state and federal
agencies as well other not-for-profit agencies have paid for. Who gets
the data?

I'm not articulate enough to express this concern. Whenever I try to
speak to folks about it, they start looking at me like I'm from mars
or something.

"whaddya mean 'who owns it?'"

What ever happened to public domain?

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 21, 2006 23:39 UTC (Wed) by omez (guest, #6904) [Link]

"I'm aware of a not-for-profit that might be shutting down.
they have gigabytes of GIS databases, that various state and federal
agencies as well other not-for-profit agencies have paid for. Who gets
the data?"

Answer: Nobody. Just because it's in some another organizations's database, doesn't mean it's up for grabs when they bite the dust. Those state and federal agencies tend to retain copyright to thier GIS products.

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 15, 2006 12:13 UTC (Thu) by etwilson (guest, #8459) [Link] (2 responses)

Google's not "betraying" anyone. They wrote the code, they get to pick the license to release it under. If you don't like it, don't use it. It's really that simple.

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 15, 2006 23:41 UTC (Thu) by proski (guest, #104) [Link] (1 responses)

The point is, if your friend asks you to help him remove ads from Google Earth, what would you do?

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 16, 2006 1:52 UTC (Fri) by bignose (subscriber, #40) [Link]

> if your friend asks you to help him remove ads from Google Earth, what
> would you do?

If someone enters an agreement not to help me with respect to a piece of software, and then asks me for help with that same software? The answer would pretty clearly be "no, ask the other party to your exclusive agreement".

http://zgp.org/~dmarti/blosxom/freedom/help-for-nonfree.html

Actions have consequences. If you want help from people around you, don't accept terms that require you not to help people around you.

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 17, 2006 2:30 UTC (Sat) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link] (1 responses)

> To gain access to this software, users must either agree to betray their neighbour by not helping them, or pretend to agree and then breach the software copyright.

Pray explain how my using google earth on linux is an "agreement to betray" anyone. If "my neighbor" likes the program I can give him a URL to download it just like I did.

Please tone down the hysterics. This sort of rhetoric can be used to convince the world that linux users are a a bunch of kooks.

Non-free software is divisive and harmful.

Posted Jun 22, 2006 6:40 UTC (Thu) by bignose (subscriber, #40) [Link]

> Pray explain how my using google earth on linux is an "agreement to betray"
> anyone.

The Google Earth (non-Pro) license agreement is viewable here, for those who haven't downloaded the software: http://earth.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=34344

It says in the first paragraph: "BY INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTED WITH
THIS AGREEMENT (THE "SOFTWARE"), YOU ARE CONFIRMING YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE AND AGREEING TO BECOME BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT (THE "AGREEMENT")."

So, by installing the software, you either agree to the license terms, or you knowingly intend to breach them.

The license terms include: "2. LICENSE RESTRICTIONS

You shall not copy, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, translate,
modify or make derivative works of the Software, geographical
information, animations, movies, prints or screen outputs in whole or in
part."

This means by agreeing to the terms, you agree to betray your neighbour, by refusing to help in any of the ways restricted by the license terms.

> If "my neighbor" likes the program I can give him a URL to download it
> just like I did.

My assumption is that the neighbour is a person you would like to help.

If your neighbour asks for a copy of the program (or installation package) *from your computer*, the license terms prevent you from helping her. If your neighbour cannot get a copy of the program that you're running (Google is not promising to make that particular version available forever), but you still have a copy, you have it within your power to help that neighbour.

You then must either honour the agreement and (remembering this is a person you would like to help) betray her, or help her and breach the agreement with the software vendor.

Either of these actions are harmful, and either one is a direct result of the software vendor offering those divisive terms in the first place. That is a harm done by non-free software.

> Please tone down the hysterics.

Please don't presume to know my emotional state when I'm not talking about emotions.

> This sort of rhetoric can be used to convince the world that linux users
> are a a bunch of kooks.

I'm not attempting to soften the message. Actions and choices have consequences. Offering divisive non-free license terms is a harm to the community.