Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again) To : comp.programming From : Randy Howard Date : Wed Aug 24 2005 07:00 pm Arthur J. O'Dwyer wrote (in article ): > > On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, Randy Howard wrote: >> Arthur J. O'Dwyer wrote >>> (Similarly, some people don't see >>> anything inherently immoral about pot-smoking, or abortion, or murder, >>> or promoting democracy. Some people do. It's all relative, the >>> post-modernists would say. Certainly it's /subjective/.) >> >> There is nothing remotely similar between programming and >> illegal acts. Unless you can point to a law that makes it >> illegal to work developing commercial software (in general), the >> above is a total crock of excrement. > > If murder was legal, you'd be cool with it? No. > I'm confused. Agreed. > Remember, > nobody is claiming that non-free software is /illegal/. It's wrong. Then why is it being compared to a felony? I'll say it again, there is no rational comparison between them, so stop the juxtaposition. > The facts that pot-smoking is illegal in parts of the USA, and murder is > illegal pretty much everywhere, are completely irrelevant to the point I > was trying to make. I mean, some people actually believe that murder is > /wrong/, in the absolute moral sense. Some people actually believe that > abortion is /wrong/, in the absolute moral sense. Some people actually > believe that pot-smoking is /wrong/, in the absolute moral sense. And > Stallman believes that the dissemination and use of non-free software is > /wrong/, in the absolute moral sense. Legality has nothing to do with > it. I have never met someone that thought murder (as opposed to killing in self-defense) is not wrong. So it's not really open to such debate. If Stallman thinks that the use of commercial software is wrong, then he is free not to do so. The problem I have with him is wanted to preach at others that they are wrong for doing it as well. It's one thing to stand around telling people that he doesn't like it, and why he doesn't like it, and it is quite another to tell young folks fresh out of college that it is immoral to pursue the one thing they have trained for since leaving high school, and often quite a bit earlier. >> It's not between good and evil. There is no law, or moral >> precedent for claiming that people charging for their work >> product > > Who's talking about "charging for their work product"? I was talking > about Stallman's views in re non-free software. "Free as in freedom." > Let's not drag anti-capitalism into this. :) Why shouldn't we, that is exactly what Stallman's position represents. If you can not work on commercial software projects without being immoral (in his opinion anyway), than he clearly is dragging it in himself. >> Why isn't stallman insisting that artists >> don't charge for their paintings or sculpture, > > I actually asked him something along these lines back in May, when he > spoke at Pitt. He doesn't see anything wrong with restricting the > consumer's rights when it comes to essentially "entertainment" products > like music, art, or DVDs. He views software as distinguished by its nature > as a "tool" for /getting things done/. So commercial video game software is acceptable, or is hypocritical on that as well? If he wants to make the argument that development tools should be free that /almost/ makes some sense, to foster more software development, but if he wants to argue that all software should be free, because it is "essential" then he has never looked at some of the completely non-essential BS available as software products. > IIRC, I asked what he thought > about non-free screensavers, and he said something like, well, that might > be okay. How nice of him. :-) > The obvious counter-argument is that Windows and Mac OS X are basically > "entertainment" and "tool" all mixed up together, with perhaps a little > more of the former in many cases (Clippy, anyone?). Once you start dicing and slicing the landscape with him, you've already given in. The entire premise is a farce. >> Why would any rational person accept such a ludicrous position? >> Are copyrighted books morally wrong? > > According to Stallman, no, because they're not "tools." I wonder if he would claim that his own book on Make fits the description of not being a 'tool'. I found and often find as a reference that it can be quite useful as such, but I probably shouldn't have purchased it, since he is opposed to making money. If nothing else, he should probably send me a refund to clear his conscience, as it is immoral for him to get paid for it. >> Why is Ford allowed to >> sell cars, without Stallman insisting that they give them away? > > Because raw materials, unlike ones and zeros, cost money. (Randy: "So > does college." Stallman, presumably: "Bill Gates was a dropout.") 1's and 0's don't exist with motherboards, hard drives, memory, processors, displays, internet connections, printers, paper, electricity, etc. It's a lame argument. Bill Gates doesn't write real software, and by all creditable accounts never has. >> What kind of deranged >> cult-leader does it take to come up with the theory that you >> should spend many $$$$$$ on a college education to learn how to >> write software, then do it for free for the rest of their life >> while bussing tables at McDonald's? Furrfu. > > Oh, you can still get paid. You can even sell your software, if you can > find anyone willing to pay for it. /If/ my grandmother had wheels she would be a teacart. Take a look at the percentage of people who download a popular open source application that actually make donation sometime. I'd be shocked if it was over 1%, and the donation amount averaged over $5.00. > And of course you can sell tech > support (if you can find anyone willing to pay for it), and you can sell > T-shirts with penguins on them, Careful, you'll have to pay a license fee now, due to the Linus action preventing people from falsely using "Linux" or whatever. > and you can even get hired by the > government to write code for Mars rovers on the taxpayer's dime, and you > can still get hired to be the company's IT guy, or to write their > proprietary salary database. You can even get hired by rich private > citizens to hack their Linux shells just the way they want them. That must have been some tasty kool-aid they served at Pitt when Stallman came to visit. > It's > just that a lot more people get to benefit from your labor, and you > get to benefit from a lot of other programmers' labor. What if you do not want anyone else to benefit from your labor? What if you are a greedy bastard and actually want to retire some day instead of living off of dog food and hoping someone clicks on the donate button on your website for the package that you became too sick and infirm to maintain 5 years earlier. > Yes, Stallman is talking about a decrease in the number of working > programmers worldwide. That's nice for him, provided he still makes money. >> The fact is Stallman likes the idea of free software, and I do >> too. The problem is he wants to remake the entire software >> space into his own view of how it should be. > > Yeah. On the one hand, that's a turnoff, I agree. On the other hand, > you could think of it as just an aggressive standardization push. I > forget your position in the recent OpenOffice thread, but isn't it kind of > annoying that OpenOffice can't get the Microsoft Word format just right? > In Stallman's world, they could! :) Yeah, because he would force Microsoft to do make their products open source so that they wouldn't be called /immoral'. Yes, that has been proven to be highly effective on Gates in the past. :-) >> Okay, you explain, and please be specific, exactly how it using >> closed-source software is wrong. It must be so in all cases, >> and you must support it. When you have made a properly >> formulated absolute position, I will be happy to blow holes in >> it for you. > > http://www.gnu.org/ Ah, so you don't have one of your own. Fair enough, but I've read the GNU stuff plenty of times, and I don't agree with most of it. We've hashed through most of it already, and I thought you had some new spin on things. > And from there, I also found a good position from Jimmy Wales on > why Wikipedia is free-as-in-free-software. > http://blog.jimmywales.com/index.php/archives/2004/10/21/free- knowledge-requir > es-free-software-and-free-file-formats/ "Through our work, every single person on the planet will have easy low cost access to free knowledge to empower them to do whatever it is that they want to do." Ever study much about how cults operate and manipulate people? This is a fallacy. "Every single person on the planet" will not even see a computer in their lifetime. Many will never even have electricity, but somehow open source software will fix all that. Childish, at best. >> Once again, the fallacy that all users are programmers. *sigh* > > No, just the fallacy that all computer users know how to use computers. ;) That is a fallacy. I have encountered more than my fair share of "users" who meet the old TSTOAC acronym. (Too stupid to own a computer). > Less disingenuously, the fallacy that all computer users who want a > problem solved badly enough will solve it themselves, or else pay someone > else to solve it. > ("But wait!" you say. "If they paid someone to do it, wouldn't they > naturally distribute the resulting program as non-GPL, so as to make a lot > of money off the solution?" Yes, says Stallman, if they were immoral > bastards. Not if they were committed to Doing Right even at an > opportunity cost to themselves.) So these programmers would be restricting trade by the force of their 'moral' convictions so that others could not even hire them to help them out. Lovely. This of course is built on the completely false premise that all programmers on the planet, or at least the competent ones, will /all/ convert to his religion and grow a beard. Good luck. >>> The tech-support market for >>> free software is much more chaotic and free-market-capitalistic, and in >>> practice ends up being pretty bad, at the moment. >> >> Horrible, if it is even there at all. It is not ready for >> prime-time, but usually quite adequate if you are already quite >> a capable techie yourself. > > And, as you point out, as a general rule only capable techies use free > software. There are at least three chicken-and-egg problems here. :) Yes. /IF/ open source software was as capable and production ready as commercial software, then we wouldn't be having an argument at all, because all of the commercial vendors would be out of business. That hasn't, and isn't likely to happen anytime in the next couple of centuries. His whole argument relies upon an utterly complete ignorance of economics. >>>> [Hypothetical: MS lifts non-GPL open code into their own program.] >>> >>> More places than what? Microsoft's code isn't "massively >>> peer-reviewed." >> >> I was referring to the 'lifted' libraries and what not. > > Once they've been isolated inside a massive closed-source project, they > lose that benefit. How does the end user/cryptanalyst/hacker/tech support > guy know that some unknown Microsoft engineer hasn't accidentally (or not) > /broken/ the copy of the library used by the closed-source program? He doesn't, any more than you know that some open source project hasn't done the same thing, unless you spend a ton of time and money finding out. Plus, there is no guarantee without similar expenditure that the original version wasn't flawed either. End users do not do this, for either open source or closed source projects, never have, and never will. They wait for patches and sometimes apply them. The possibility of it happening with open source does not make it likely. What percentage of companies using open source products even look at the source code, much less compile it, or analyze it for security problems? Some number quite close to zero. Most people download the precompiled binaries and go... >> And I have yet to hear a single convincing argument that it is >> immoral to work for a living in the field of which you are most >> competent. Feel free to provide one at your convenience. > > Kidnapping for ransom. As expected, no realistic answer was forthcoming. You make my point for me here. Thank you. -- Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR) .