WOW! Community soap opera - and then some!

Posted Oct 12, 2006 23:06 UTC (Thu) by Zack (guest, #37335)
In reply to: WOW! Community soap opera - and then some! by Sombrio
Parent article: Busy busy busybox

>>They don't see the value that business brings to the table and they have a deep and entrenched distust of people of influence or people of wealth.

They invited major "shareholders" of Free Software to the table for discussing the upcoming GPLv3. So far none of them has left with slamming doors.

The FSF has always seen the importance of commercial endeavours regarding Free Software. In the spirit of the four software freedoms, it is the task of the FSF to safeguard "the right to make a profit" against "the right to make a profit by trampling users rights"

The large shareholders who hold considerable economic assets regarding Free Software are expecting the FSF to listen to their concerns that none of their competitors gains an unfair advantage by unifying on a common ground. In return the FSF wants to define a level playing field where denying users rights cannot be used as leverage.

Basically what you mean by "They don't see the value that business" is "They refuse to cater to the advantage the business I am in gains by supressing the four software freedoms."

>>Business has invested too much in open source to walk away now. Business is not evil,

No, evil business is evil. Good business is good.

>>Many in the world believe that people starving to death in the Sudan is an issue worth getting worked up about, whereas hacking in to a Tivo box may be fun, it is not an issue that has any real bearing on mankind.

Most people aren't in a position to charter a flight and drop food packages over a starving population. However, some are in a position to close the digital divide and create a low-treshold perspective for people wanting to improve their lives.
Countries suffering from hunger are not in a position to take advantage of such technologies yet. But should they reach that stage the opportunity to succeed on technical merit guaranteed by the four software freedoms should be available to them.

Software (and software freedom) has a real bearing on mankind, and this will only increase as time goes by.

>>Thus, a giant fork between those of us who are mainstream and earn a living from Open Source and those of us who are fringe and want to impose their views of society through Free software is inevitable.

This is disingenuous at best; to label those who support Free Software as "fringe" and imply they do not earn their living with it.

WOW! Community soap opera - and then some!

Posted Oct 13, 2006 2:25 UTC (Fri) by sepreece (guest, #19270) [Link]

"Not leaving with slamming doors" doesn't necessarily imply "comfortable", "satisfied", or "believing they have been listened to". Nor are the interests of all businesses necessarily aligned.

It could be that some are continuing to participate because they believe they can get small improvements (removing ambiguities in the license is a benefit even if the unambiguous answer is not the one you would have preferred) and don't want to burn their bridges.

It could be that some are continuing to participate because they favor non-free software options and want to make it harder for others to benefit from using free software.