[HN Gopher] Free Software Needs Free Tools (2010)
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Free Software Needs Free Tools (2010)
Author : pabs3
Score : 73 points
Date : 2024-12-28 03:58 UTC (19 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (mako.cc)
| Almondsetat wrote:
| By this logic compiling free software on Windows is an
| "unacceptable cost" even though it allows people to become
| accustomed with free software programs and make the transition to
| a FOSS OS much easier
| kkfx wrote:
| It is: because people who find, also thanks to FLOSS, a
| comfortable home on Windows will remain there instead of
| switching to a fully Free ecosystem.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| Nobody "uses" the operating system. People interact with an
| UI that lets them run the programs they need. We can already
| switch most people to Linux (ChromeOS) because they mostly
| use a browser. In the same way, if most people already used
| FOSS tools they could seamlessly move to Linux
| WillAdams wrote:
| You're overlooking the matter of hardware
| support/requirements.
|
| I prefer to use tablets with a stylus, but specifically
| want a high-resolution display and Wacom EMR, and a file
| system and the ability to run arbitrary applications.
|
| Writing this out on a Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 in
| Windows 11 because it's the only reasonably priced option
| (I despair of replacing my Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4110 since
| another need is for a daylight-viewable display, or my Book
| 12 which was small enough to fit in my day bag along w/ my
| Kindle Scribe).
|
| I am currently considering a Raspberry Pi 5 w/ a Wacom One
| 13 (2nd gen) or Wacom Movink 13, but this means that giving
| up high resolution (only 1920 x 1080) and battery and
| decent handwriting recognition... which is scarcely
| "seamless".
|
| Hoping that the Lenovo Yogabook 9i is popular enough that
| it will inaugurate a product category which will prompt
| Samsung to make a competitor w/ Wacom EMR which will be
| popular enough that folks will work out how to install
| Linux... (and I'd be interested in running Linux on my Book
| 3 Pro 360 as I used to run Lubuntu on NTFS on a Thinkpad
| convertible).
| alganet wrote:
| Yes. To _depend_ on Windows would be a mistake in terms of
| freedom.
| kkfx wrote:
| Free Software need free and widespread culture, that's why FLOSS
| today suffer much. To have developers we need people who develop,
| who own their machines rooms, and today most live on someone else
| computer. No knowing the infra, not possessing one means being
| not on free tools.
| KingMob wrote:
| Also, Free Software creators should get compensated for their
| work by current free-riders in the system.
| kiba wrote:
| Software developers often just give away FOSS for free, not
| even charging a nominal fee.
|
| As a result, proprietary software essentially has an unlimited
| money cheat that they can use to plow into further development
| until greed starts seriously degrading the quality of software.
| Qem wrote:
| Copyleft solves this. The problem is permissive licenses that
| lack copyleft, allowing privatization of codebases.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| >>As a result, proprietary software essentially has an
| unlimited money cheat that they can use to plow into
| further development until greed starts seriously degrading
| the quality of software.
|
| >Copyleft solves this. The problem is permissive licenses
| that lack copyleft, allowing privatization of codebases.
|
| Copyleft only partially solves the problem. A company with
| enough resources can give you the code and you still can't
| effectively fork it unless you are also running a huge
| company, because making an incompatible product that lacks
| updates would be unacceptable. Other times, companies are
| so big that they essentially drive a whole open source
| ecosystem. Look at IBM's disproportionate influence on
| Linux. We certainly appreciate their contributions but many
| people disagree about the direction IBM has chosen, and
| their choices affect everyone because apps are usually
| built to cater to the lowest common denominator.
|
| Another good example is Chromium. That project is copyleft
| but nobody wants an old out of date web browser because of
| security concerns. Even Microsoft could not keep up with
| their feature development so they forked it. But how
| different is their fork really? If they are to take code
| from upstream, it can't be very different.
| ADeerAppeared wrote:
| It is not "free riding" to take the software that is explicitly
| given away, for free, gratis, nada, nothing, and not pay
| anything in return.
|
| "I want this to be given away free for ideological reasons but
| you must also pay me" is a moronic position. Pick one or the
| other, if you want money, just sell the software.
|
| The refusal of "FOSS" communities to use a direct non-
| commercial clause is an entirely self-inflicted wound.
| nurbl wrote:
| Seems to be precisely what "free-rider" means; entities
| benefiting from public resources without contributing
| anything back.
| roenxi wrote:
| Also, if the end user can't use it for commercial purposes
| then the software is by definition not FOSS software. That
| would be a major restriction on their freedom. It is
| impossible to have a FOSS community that restricts its
| software from being used in commerce. The emphasis has
| always been on the F-for-freedom part of FOSS, especially
| after the schism with the OSS people who don't see freedom
| as the same level of priority.
| ADeerAppeared wrote:
| > if the end user can't use it for commercial purposes
| then the software is by definition not FOSS software.
|
| Okay but like, who cares. The definition of "Free
| Software" is just whatever RMS screeches about. The OSI
| is rather biased towards them, and importantly, does not
| own the trademark.
|
| > That would be a major restriction on their freedom.
|
| Then why complain that they excercise that freedom.
|
| Either commercial use without paying back is an
| explicitly granted and supported freedom, and then
| companies doing that is fine. Or it is not, in which case
| restrict commercial use on the free license if you want
| companies to pay up.
| roenxi wrote:
| > Okay but like, who cares.
|
| People who care about freedom. The question answers
| itself. If the person writing the software is laying down
| the law about how it is going to be used then, as a
| simple and practical matter, the user is being denied
| freedom. If code can't be used for business purposes it
| is a bit of stretch to say it is free software. We may as
| well call pirated software free software if we're being
| that loose with language that we only mean price; people
| don't pay for it either. The "free" stands for freedom.
|
| > Then why complain that they excercise that freedom.
|
| They've just legally given up all the coercive options,
| so the only tool left is complaint. That is one of the
| major points of the whole thing - for everyone to have
| the most freedom communities have to try and resolve
| disputes by clear communication, vocalising concerns,
| argument and persuasion.
|
| Although I think you've misread KingMob's comment.
| Exactly what they meant is open to interpreting, but what
| they actually said isn't a complaint. "Free-riders" is a
| technical term for what most FOSS software users are
| doing. It might be explicitly endorsed by the software
| maintainer but it is still free-riding.
| ADeerAppeared wrote:
| > They've just legally given up all the coercive options,
| so the only tool left is complaint
|
| My previous comment on this was unclear.
|
| The very act of complaining about it betrays the idea
| that it's "freedom".
|
| Either companies have the freedom to take without giving
| back, in which case forcing them to buy the software
| breaks those freedoms, but you shouldn't complain.
|
| Or they do not have the freedom, in which case just sell
| the software normally.
| ADeerAppeared wrote:
| Public transit companies that make tickets explicitly free
| and then get upset nobody pays them would get laughed out
| the room for bemoaning "free-riders".
|
| It may be a "technically correct" use of the word, but it's
| not a useful definition to include this.
| jcelerier wrote:
| The public transit companies are being paid though ?
| Through tax instead of through direct payment
| remram wrote:
| Are they "public resources" or are they gifts?
|
| If you have a precise idea in mind about how you want it to
| be used and how they should reward you, put _that_ in the
| license.
|
| You even have OSI-approved options here, like AGPL.
| Qem wrote:
| > The refusal of "FOSS" communities to use a direct non-
| commercial clause is an entirely self-inflicted wound.
|
| The self-inflicted wound is non-copyleft licenses. Under
| copyleft you pay for free code with more code, by making
| freely available any modifications you publish over the
| original. Permissive licenses break this, causing a self-
| inflicted wound. Corporations can just build upon your
| codebase and privatize your base effort, giving just the
| middle finger back to community.
| ADeerAppeared wrote:
| > Under copyleft you pay for free code with more code
|
| You do not. There is nothing in the GPL that mandates you
| contribute. You can simply use the software as-is, and
| never contribute. Sit on your hands when there's a major
| exploit and wait until someone else fixes it, then take
| their fix.
|
| It is, in fact, piss easy to get around the GPL because it
| only applies to distribution. If you SaaS or simply do not
| distribute the software, you can do whatever you want. You
| can dynamic link all day against evil proprietary software
| so long as you make the user download the GPL'd bit from a
| third party.
|
| And this is obvious to all because the AGPL exists to fix
| this, but is an even worse shitshow.
|
| > Corporations can just build upon your codebase and
| privatize your base effort, giving just the middle finger
| back to community.
|
| And the humble non-commercial clause trivially resolves
| this while the copyleft licenses have spent decades trying
| and failing.
| lolinder wrote:
| > "I want this to be given away free for ideological reasons
| but you must also pay me" is a moronic position. Pick one or
| the other, if you want money, just sell the software.
|
| Exactly--it's a position that Matt Mulenweg has now exposed
| in gory detail as not just a moronic position but an
| unethical one. You want to get paid? Put it in a contract up
| front. You want to release Free Software with no extra
| contracts? Don't _expect_ to get paid--sponsorships are a
| nice bonus, not something you 're entitled to.
|
| The "I should be able to release Free Software for free with
| no strings attached and also you are morally obligated to pay
| me" position is inherently an unethical bait and switch.
| You're only entitled to the compensation that you communicate
| up front in writing. Red Hat does this right, Canonical does
| this right, JetBrains does this right.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Exactly--it's a position that Matt Mulenweg has now
| exposed in gory detail as not just a moronic position but
| an unethical one.
|
| You're not obligated to give away your _services_. Red Hat
| was putting (still puts?) in their support contracts that
| to share GPL patches that they distribute to you as a
| customer will cancel the contract.
|
| Matt Mullenweg distributes Free Software that anybody has
| the right to fork freely, although he may obligate them to
| strip the trademark out (although he _hasn 't_ until now.)
| How could _Red Hat_ possibly be doing something right if he
| 's doing something wrong? What is CentOS supposed to be?
| lolinder wrote:
| Matt has been very clear that he's attempting to use the
| trademark as a bludgeon to get WP Engine to "give back"
| (whatever that means). There was no contract ahead of
| time that required anyone to give back, and the trademark
| policy has for more than a decade condoned WP Engine's
| usage as an explicit permission. All the written
| communication has always been in favor of WP Engine's
| rights to use all the IP exactly as they have been with
| no obligation to do anything, yet Matt has decided that
| he's owed something.
|
| Red Hat, meanwhile, puts a clause into a written contract
| that says that they will continue to provide support as
| long as you don't forward what they give you to other
| people.
|
| We can get into debates all day long about which one is
| truer to the "spirit of Open Source" or some such
| philosophical abstraction, but one of the two
| organizations we're talking about put their expectations
| for compensation into a detailed written contract and the
| other, to put it generously, didn't.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| Since this is HN, someone has to be the stickler for
| definitions I suppose. :-P
|
| It's not given away for free. You are granted certain
| freedoms (liberties), to wit:
|
| 1. freedom to run the program 2. Freedom to study and alter
| it 3. freedom to redistribute copies 4. freedom to
| redistribute changes
|
| So it's Free as in speech, not as in beer.
|
| In lots of languages there's two separate words for these
| concepts: eg german ('Frei' vs 'Gratis') or french ('Libre'
| vs 'Gratuit).
|
| It's entirely possible to sell free software. It's something
| I do!
|
| Non-commercial actually worsens the free-rider situation imo.
| I don't count it as Free Software at all.
| ADeerAppeared wrote:
| > So it's Free as in speech, not as in beer.
|
| See how in my comment I use 4 synonyms for "free",
| including "gratis"? That was not just trying to sound cool.
| That was trying (and evidently, failing, given you're not
| the only one) to pre-empt this exact point.
|
| > It's entirely possible to sell free software.
|
| This is much more controversial in the FOSS space than it
| seems to outsiders.
|
| There is the obvious problem that one of the Freedoms
| involves the ability to take your purchased copy and give
| it away 'gratis' to everyone else, thus undercutting the
| market for the original author.
|
| And this begs the question: Can I _practically_ charge
| money for the freedoms? Must it be gratis?
|
| It would be relatively easy to write a license with a
| royalty fee. Every time you distribute a copy of the fork,
| you must pay the original author. This would be a cromulent
| way to get around the piracy problem.
|
| Except it is deeply controversial. To the point where even
| the FSF tries to play games around "selling the software"
| versus "selling the service of providing a download of the
| software".
|
| In practice, no you can't really sell Free Software. Just
| look at all the startups that were Open Source and
| immediately shut that down when the infinite free venture
| capital ran out.
|
| > Non-commercial actually worsens the free-rider situation
| imo. I don't count it as Free Software at all.
|
| I simply do not care about the designation of "Free
| Software". It sucks and has painted itself into a corner.
| Modern policing of it's meaning (especially by the OSI
| which hilariously tries to pretend that "Open Source" is
| subject to FOSS definitions) is entirely just hypocrisy
| favouring the GPL.
|
| If you want to get paid, cash money, just fucking put it in
| the license. Use a user agreement like everyone else on the
| planet.
|
| If you want it to be Free, slap a 'gratis' license on there
| and don't get upset when companies don't give anything
| back.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > This is much more controversial in the FOSS space than
| it seems to outsiders.
|
| Free software has been sold since the dawn of Free
| software, by the central figures of Free software.
|
| > There is the obvious problem that one of the Freedoms
| involves the ability to take your purchased copy and give
| it away 'gratis' to everyone else, thus undercutting the
| market for the original author.
|
| This is exactly why it is not at all controversial to
| sell FOSS. You can easily be undercut. If you're
| successful selling FOSS, it's because you've made it
| really easy for your customers, been really helpful to
| them, or because they want to pay you because they like
| you, probably because they know you're putting work in.
| Free not meaning "gratis" doesn't mean that you _can 't_
| get software gratis, it means that _I 'm not required to
| give it to you_ gratis.
|
| This controversy is made up from whole cloth. I don't
| doubt that people are arguing about it, but neither
| person in that argument has any idea what they're talking
| about. They are people trying to ride the coattails of
| FOSS to get rich, as well they should (get rich in any
| ethical way you can.) But Open Source was a ploy to
| undercut Free software, and is operating just as
| intended, supplying corporations with free labor in
| return for nothing.
|
| If you don't want to be copyleft, and you don't want to
| be ripped off as OSS, just be proprietary. The reason
| people don't want to do this is either because the
| software is not good enough to compete, or they can't
| afford the marketing and infrastructure to sell or even
| give away a proprietary product. So they pretend there's
| this honor system called the _spirit of open source_
| where the entire world is meant to ignore the freedom
| that permissive licenses give until the authors have the
| time to get rich. When Amazon ignores the memo, they
| pretend it 's the concept of Free Software that's to
| blame, or even for that matter the concept of Open
| Source.
|
| The problem is trying to benefit from the concept without
| actually believing in it, and failing. The point of Free
| Software is that people have access to the software that
| runs the machines that their lives depend on. The point
| of Open Source is to supply free labor to others in order
| to hopefully get attention, praise, or simply personal
| satisfaction. If neither of these things are what you're
| into, that's not something wrong with FOSS, and that's
| not something wrong with you.
|
| > I simply do not care about the designation of "Free
| Software". It sucks and has painted itself into a corner.
| Modern policing of it's meaning (especially by the OSI
| which hilariously tries to pretend that "Open Source" is
| subject to FOSS definitions) is entirely just hypocrisy
| favouring the GPL.
|
| These are two unrelated organizations with opposing
| philosophies. The reason OSI software is Free Software is
| because anybody can steal OSI licensed and do whatever
| they want with it, as long as they do some trivial things
| that the license requires, such as including a copy of
| the license, or possibly a credit for the author. The GPL
| is a restrictive license that obligates the people who
| distribute the software to many explicit and strict
| responsibilities that people are willing to sue you over.
| OSI licenses are not.
| ADeerAppeared wrote:
| > You can easily be undercut. If you're successful
| selling FOSS, it's because you've made it really easy for
| your customers, been really helpful to them, or because
| they want to pay you because they like you, probably
| because they know you're putting work in.
|
| What you are mincing words about here is the fact that
| no, you are not selling software, you are receiving
| voluntary donations.
|
| It's the same rhetoric as always "Um akshually you can
| sell Free Software" when what is meant is "You can put it
| up for sale".
|
| I am not obliged to humour it, so I will not.
|
| > supplying corporations with free labor in return for
| nothing.
|
| As opposed to FOSS, which is currently ... Coping and
| Seething in this thread about receiving nothing in
| return.
|
| It ain't a ploy. We just don't care if corporations use
| it.
|
| > The problem is trying to benefit from the concept
| without actually believing in it, and failing. The point
| of Free Software is that people have access to the
| software that runs the machines that their lives depend
| on. The point of Open Source is to supply free labor to
| others in order to hopefully get attention, praise, or
| simply personal satisfaction.
|
| The word for that is "cult".
| josephcsible wrote:
| If you want the megacorps to pay, then you should license your
| stuff under the AGPLv3+ and sell exceptions. If you went with a
| pushover license like MIT, it's your own fault they're
| freeloading.
| Galanwe wrote:
| I have no issue using closed source software when they are doing
| nothing of intellectual value. Free software's very purpose is to
| ensure things of intellectual value can be understood, and
| knowledge cannot be locked up.
|
| GitHub does not fall in this category to me. There is of course
| smart and interesting engineering behind it, but functionally
| speaking its only added value is to be faster, more wide spread,
| and better UX than others.
| bbkane wrote:
| I mostly agree, but I also rely on GitHub Copilot, CI/CD,
| issues, pages, and storage (for releases). And that's just for
| my simple little side projects!
|
| While I'm grateful GitHub is such a great service and provides
| these for free, I also worry about my reliance on it.
|
| Some languages (Rust for example) also rely on GitHub for
| package management (I think just for auth though).
| frou_dh wrote:
| I think of this kind of thing as related to Lock-In. If some
| proprietary thing I use were to go away permanently, would that
| be a (perhaps significant) inconvenience, or would it be a
| disaster? If the former then there's not really lock-in and its
| more a "make hay while the sun shines" situation.
| remram wrote:
| So you mean "GitHub does fall in this category" of "doing
| nothing of intellectual value"?
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Free software's very purpose is to ensure things of
| intellectual value can be understood, and knowledge cannot be
| locked up.
|
| I've never heard this before. I was operating under the
| assumption that Free software was to keep us from being
| enslaved by the products we use, not that it was some kind of
| intellectual edification for people who enjoy coding.
|
| I actually don't care the tiniest bit about whether coders have
| sufficient intellectual stimulation, so it's weird that I care
| about Free software.
| thecrash wrote:
| It's both. Free software is a more efficient mode of
| production because it maximizes the exchange of ideas about
| how best to build software. It's also a more libertarian mode
| of consumption because it maximizes freedom of choice for
| users.
| fph wrote:
| For a more modern facet to this issue, I'm surprised there isn't
| more teamwork around VSCodium, VS Code's free counterpart.
| skydhash wrote:
| Almost everyone that uses VSCode don't care that much about the
| editor. They just want something to do the job. Most of the
| plugins are just glue code for integrations, not a true UX
| improvements for your workflow. Compare that to to Emacs and
| (Neo)Vim where all the plugins are about improving your
| workflows.
| pentagrama wrote:
| The article was published in 2010, and GitLab--an open-source
| distributed version control system based on Git--was launched in
| 2014 [1].
|
| I would like to know the author's thoughts on GitLab now.
|
| Do you think GitLab is underrated?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitLab
| taraparo wrote:
| GitLab is open core not open source. Forgejo is true OSS.
| tzs wrote:
| Is that actually a useful distinction? All open core means is
| that a project has a true OSS core version plus non-open
| parts that provide extra features beyond what the OSS core
| offers.
|
| It can be the case that the OSS part of an open core project
| has the same or more features than a competing project that
| is all OSS.
| jeltz wrote:
| Are there any key features which is not in the open source
| version?
| remram wrote:
| The constant spam from Forgejo supporters who "are the only
| true OSS" is very tiring.
|
| I don't understand the distinction. If I can get one car for
| free that doesn't have a car seat, or I can get another car
| for free for which I can get a car seat (at a cost)... why is
| the first one superior? Why is the "no paid addon" a good
| thing if it doesn't have the addon at all? It obviously
| doesn't benefit people who need car seat, but does it even
| benefits the ones who don't?
|
| The core of "open core" products is open source, as per the
| OSI definition. What do you all want?
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| The parent post highlights one of the core reasons behind
| the failure of FOSS: its growth was built on a base that
| cared only about the _gratis_ aspect without any real
| interest in the _libre_ aspect. They 're perfectly happy to
| take any FOSS they can get for free and pay for any
| proprietary software needed with the money they saved.
| remram wrote:
| If you _have to do_ something in exchange then it 's not
| gratis OR libre. Whether that's enforced by law or
| community shaming.
| thecrash wrote:
| It has to do with the way power and incentives are
| configured within the project, and therefore what can be
| expected of the maintainers in the future.
|
| For some people/use cases, the threat of developers rug-
| pulling a tool you depend on is not a big deal as long as
| it's good right now. But in many situations the tool which
| has less features but also less incentive to rug-pull wins
| out.
| jeltz wrote:
| Gitlab is slow and bloated but otherwise better than GitHub in
| almost all things, especially the CI.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Free Software Needs Free Tools (2010)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30843609 - March 2022 (3
| comments)
|
| _Free Software Needs Free Tools (2010)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17226169 - June 2018 (9
| comments)
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