DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Jun 21, 2023 0:20 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: DeVault: Reforming the free software message by pizza
Parent article: DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Of course it is!

If I insist on receiving Open Source rights with any software I use, then it's very hard for people to distinguish between Open Source and Free Software. If everybody who cares about it, does it, then we all win.

But if I offload my maintenance burden by paying someone else, is it fair that I pay for the maintenance burden for everyone? THAT is the problem that we face. Free Software guarantees that a lot of useful software won't get written. "Open Core" and "proprietary" give us greater choice of software.

The Free Software crowd want to remove my freedom to pay someone else. They are placing their freedoms above mine, and that way lies tyranny. I may not like that dilemma, I may not approve of that dilemma, but as someone rephrased Newton's second law - "What man proposes, nature opposes". You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Cheers,
Wol

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Jun 21, 2023 0:57 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

> If I insist on receiving Open Source rights with any software I use, then it's very hard for people to distinguish between Open Source and Free Software. If everybody who cares about it, does it, then we all win.

Careful there; "open source rights", as you're using the term, *is* "Free Software". If that was all there was to say on that topic, then the FSF would be heralded as a unparalleled success story.

> But if I offload my maintenance burden by paying someone else, is it fair that I pay for the maintenance burden for everyone?

By that same token, it's not fair that you didn't pay the original software authors for their work.

(Way back in the day, I came across an interview with Donald Becker, the author of many, many Linux networking drivers. When asked why he gave away all that code for free, he responded something to the effect of "I didn't give my work for free; in return I got the rest of the operating system, and considered that good payment")

> THAT is the problem that we face. Free Software guarantees that a lot of useful software won't get written. "Open Core" and "proprietary" give us greater choice of software.

It's great until your supplier jacks up the price. Or abandons the product. Then you're screwed.

(It's the classic short-term vs long-term tradeoff..)

> The Free Software crowd want to remove my freedom to pay someone else.

Um, no. There is literally nothing stopping you from paying someone else to do work for you. What you do with their work is up to you.

> They are placing their freedoms above mine, and that way lies tyranny.

Huh? If you consider "If you pass on or modify software I've written, it has to be under the same terms as it was supplied to you" to be tyranny, then you've lived a very sheltered life indeed.

> I may not like that dilemma, I may not approve of that dilemma, but as someone rephrased Newton's second law - "What man proposes, nature opposes". You can't have your cake and eat it too.

So is the natural order greed and avarice, or cooperation for mutual benefit? Nature (and history) is replete with examples of both.

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Jun 21, 2023 6:59 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

> Careful there; "open source rights", as you're using the term, *is* "Free Software". If that was all there was to say on that topic, then the FSF would be heralded as a unparalleled success story.

Yep. It's been very successful, and I'm very grateful.

> (Way back in the day, I came across an interview with Donald Becker, the author of many, many Linux networking drivers. When asked why he gave away all that code for free, he responded something to the effect of "I didn't give my work for free; in return I got the rest of the operating system, and considered that good payment")

Pay forward ... again, couldn't agree more ...

> It's great until your supplier jacks up the price. Or abandons the product. Then you're screwed.

And if there is no FLOSS equivalent? You're screwed before you start. If the economics don't support a FLOSS equivalent? Don't forget, FLOSS survives very well in the niche where it is a BYproduct of a different business. It struggles where it is the product itself.

> Um, no. There is literally nothing stopping you from paying someone else to do work for you. What you do with their work is up to you.

There is literally EVERYTHING stopping you, if you don't have the means of payment ...

> So is the natural order greed and avarice, or cooperation for mutual benefit? Nature (and history) is replete with examples of both.

Depends how close the two of you are. Co-operate with those close to you, compete (steal from) with those further away. This whole debate is about the difference between the Open Source crowd, who consider Free Software as close to them and to be co-operated with, and the Free Software crowd who see Open Source as a competitor to be assimilated and destroyed.

And if, as I said above, the Free Software crowd could see that "pure" Open Source itself is no different from Free Software, we might get somewhere.

Cheers,
Wol

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Jun 21, 2023 7:11 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> There is literally EVERYTHING stopping you, if you don't have the means of payment ...

I should have added - I have £100 to buy an office suite, I DON'T have £100K to pay someone to write it for me ...

Cheers,
Wol

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Aug 1, 2023 13:16 UTC (Tue) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (7 responses)

What, exactly, prevents you from paying someone to improve software?

I suspect (though I have no facts to back it up) that there's no "open source" project with more paid developers than the "free software" Linux kernel project.

Or is the issue that you explicitly only want the improvements you pay for to benefit you, and no one else? That's still not a problem as long as you don't distribute changed binaries.

The only scenario that the GPL prevents is a.) you (or someone you contract to do it) changes the software, b.) you distribute that modified software without distributing the source code of the changes too.

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Aug 1, 2023 15:09 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (6 responses)

> What, exactly, prevents you from paying someone to improve software?

If you'd read the thread, rather than replying to a single post, the answer is clear. I DON'T HAVE THE MONEY.

I can sponsor features - indeed I have. But if I tried to pay someone to fix the problems in Libreoffice Writer (as I see them), taking all my future earnings for the rest of my life probably wouldn't - realistically - be enough.

Telling me I can do something - as in it is physically or practically possible - does not mean that *I* can do it. How does a blind man appreciate a sunset? How does a deaf man appreciate Beethoven's 9th? How does a penniless person pay for a slap-up meal?

Call me a pragmatist, but as someone who has far too much contact with the disabled and elderly I'm sick and tired of people who refuse to see that other people have their limitations ... just because YOU can do it, doesn't mean that other people can.

Cheers,
Wol

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Aug 2, 2023 8:57 UTC (Wed) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (5 responses)

*YOU* literally wrote "[...] the Free Software crowd want to remove my freedom to pay someone else."

Now you suddenly say that you don't have the money. So on one hand you (in my opinion incorrectly) claim that the "Free Software crowd" want to remove your freedom to pay someone else, then say that you wouldn't be able to pay anyway and get upset that I suggest that there's nothing preventing you from doing so.

So, what is it? Are you prevented by the "FS crowd" to pay, or by your lack of money?

I've often been in situations where I wouldn't have been able to pay for software. The very existence of Free Software has been a rescue. I've also been in situations where I *can* pay for software. Nothing has prevented me from doing so. I'm also lucky enough to be paid for developing software; both copyleft and open source.

So again, what point, exactly, were you trying to make in the post I replied to?

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Aug 2, 2023 10:53 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (4 responses)

> So, what is it? Are you prevented by the "FS crowd" to pay, or by your lack of money?

And what stops both of those being true simultaneously? I notice you left out what follows, about how reality tends to resist what we want.

Personally, I can't afford to pay for everything. And the anti-Red-Hat rent-a-mob are doing their level best to prevent me clubbing together with like-minded individuals/companies to make an organisation (let's call it Red Hat 2) that allows us to share our changes between just us, to make sure we all pay our dues.

Cheers,
Wol

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Aug 3, 2023 16:24 UTC (Thu) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (3 responses)

There's nothing preventing the two from being true at the same time, obviously, but you never gave any example of how the "FS crowd" prevents you from paying (*iff* you have the opportunity, that is). The lack of money obviously isn't their fault; on the contrary you're more--not less--likely to have money to invest in such improvements thanks to free software.

(Most) copyleft licenses have never been about preventing you from getting together with like-minded people that share changes between just you. They only prevents you from distributing those changes to third parties without providing the changes too.

[One could, however, argue about the ethics behind taking something you get for free (including any improvements others make available to you for free), but keeping your own improvements to yourself, but that's another thing entirely.]

Not being able to pay for everything is perfectly fine. No one is forcing you to. Well, except, you know, the company you're so eager to defend :P

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Aug 3, 2023 17:08 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

> There's nothing preventing the two from being true at the same time, obviously, but you never gave any example of how the "FS crowd" prevents you from paying (*iff* you have the opportunity, that is). The lack of money obviously isn't their fault; on the contrary you're more--not less--likely to have money to invest in such improvements thanks to free software.

The choice is simple. Either (1) I pay the ENTIRE cost out of my own pocket (which I can't, I doubt you can, there's very few people who could),

Or (2) I do what Red Hat are doing and bring down the wrath of the FS rent-a-mob by saying "you can't share patches with people who haven't coughed up".

Can YOU come up with a third alternative? That will actually work in this reality we live in?

Cheers,
Wol

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Aug 6, 2023 17:14 UTC (Sun) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, the third option you miss is to pay (or submit patches to) a project that distribute the improvements you help pay for.

DeVault: Reforming the free software message

Posted Aug 6, 2023 17:35 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Which IN PRACTICE does not work very well at all.

I'm involved with two such projects, lilypond, and LO/TDF.

Both are chronically short of both manpower and money, and TDF certainly seems to suffer from an excess of politics.

Lilypond at least doesn't suffer from the political problems, but that's primarily because it's pretty much a one-man-band. We have the elder statesmen who founded the project (and who rarely chime in), and we have one person who's social skills are pretty near nil but everyone respects because he's quite obviously doing his best to do a good job. And then we have a lot of people on the edge who mostly contribute support rather than code.

But it does suffer - as so many of these projects do - from the fact that the user base are not programmers but musicians. Programming is a sideline they do of necessity, they're not necessarily that good at it.

Cheers,
Wol