MESSAGE
| DATE | 2006-05-29 |
| FROM | Richard Stallman
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [rick@linuxmafia.com: Re: [Balug-talk] [rick@linuxmafia.com: Re: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Its a sorry day for The Linux?Journal]]
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>> I (continue to) dispute my friend Richard's assertion that the open
>> source movement has only practical (pragmatic) goals. It has in my
>> experience the same goals as does the free software movement -- but uses
>> differing marketing terminology to advance those goals.
>>
> Your experience is very different from mine.
>
> In my experience, statements that advocate "open source" cite only
> practical goals, such as making software powerful and reliable. They
> argue that software which is not open source is likely not to be
> powerful and reliable; but when confronted with the non-free program
> which IS powerful and reliable, they have no criticism to make.
Actually, this subtly but fundamentally changes the subject on the fly.
Please note carefully what I said: I said that in my experience the
_goals_ are the same, but different marketing terminology gets used.
You then cite "statements that advocate" -- but those are, in fact, the
aforementioned marketing terminology. You essentially conflated goals
with tactics, there. Thus, you didn't actually compare our experience
(of the matter under discussion).
It's not a change of subject. We only know people's goals from what
they say.
My experience of the goals of people who promote "open source" comes
from what they say about it, as does yours. For most of them, you and
I know only their public statements. We can only try to deduce their
goals from those.
They don't SAY they have goals like those of the free software
movement. Are they hiding those goals? Perhaps some are, but
it can't be very many.
Besides, I have had private conversations with some of them, and most
of them stand privately by the views they express in public. My
sample says that most of them are sincere. We can tell their goals
from their public statements. Occasionally we will be mistaken, but
usually we will be right.
One important open source advocate with whom I have had such
conversations is Eric Raymond. He likes free software, and would like
to encourage it; but he rejects privately as well as publicly the free
software movement's goal of a world free of proprietary software, and
our basic position that proprietary software is unethical and
antisocial.
Unless he has lied to me all the time, I know his advocacy of open
source is not a "marketing campaign" for our views. I wish it were,
but I know it isn't.
The way we identify people as open source advocates is that they
espouse the views that are usually associated with that term. In the
absence of an organization like the Church of Scientology that could
systematically arrange for them to hold free software views and hide
them, it is clear that most of them must mean exactly what they say.
> Another real example is, "Should you add non-free drivers, programming
> platforms, and apps to GNU/Linux distributions?" The free software
> movement says, "No, because non-free software is unethical." By
> contrast, supporters of open source typically consider their inclusion
> a positive feature.
Oh, now you're defining "[typical] supporters of open source" to fit
your rhetorical needs of the moment.
No, I am speaking from lots of experience.
As to "having no criticism to make" when confronted with a powerful and
reliable non-free codebase, I find that difficult to believe. Not being
an open-source advocate, I nonetheless think I can simulate one at need:
Proprietary package $foo is claimed to be powerful and reliable,
but that is a mirage: $foo can be maintained and developed only
as long as its owner permits, and can be adapted only to situations
and needs he/she authorises. The owner may retire to the country
and take up beekeeping tomorrow; $foo then becomes unmaintainable
abandonware. Our computing needs to be planned not just for today,
but for a variety of tomorrows. Something that potentially has the
remaining development life of a... mayfly is not "reliable" in any
meaningful sense, and it's "power" cannot safely be relied on.
We're much smarter to rely on open source alternative $bar, whose
advances may not have quite reached $foo's, but unlike $foo's are
ours permanently, and lack the unacceptable restrictive baggage.
Any resemblance to Prof. D.J. Bernstein's primary offerings is strictly
intentional.
That's a weak argument, since the owner could easily satisfy his
customers by making some provision for his possible disappearance.
And it is mostly inapplicable if the owner is a corporation. Users
might respond, "I will cross that bridge if I come to it. Supposing
such a situation arises, I will have plenty of time to switch to
another program then. I need not forego the program now, in
anticipation of having a reason to forego it in the future." As a
practical response, that is valid. The main reason to reject this
program is an ethical reason.
> To mention one real example, consider the question, "If you are
> developing a free program, and you find that a non-free version
> control system helps you do the work, should you use it?" Torvalds
> answered that question "yes" a few years ago. I would be surprised if
> the OSI web site presents any argument to the contrary.
An argument from the standpoint of lack of evidence,
Torvalds expressed his position quite explicitly and clearly.
especially on a
matter not within OSI's purview in the first place, seems an amazingly
weak one.
The OSI decided how far its purview should extend, and that decision
is the basis for my point.
Note the limits thereof: OSI made absolutely crystal clear that
BitKeeper, even under its original and less-noxious licence, was not
within a country mile of being open source per their DFSG-equivalent
definition. And then they stopped there, because that's where the scope
of their concern ended.
That's my point: the OSI has chosen to place a limit its concern which
puts this kind of question beyond it. The OSI will talk about what is
or isn't open source. It chooses not to discuss whether proprietary
software is ethical or not. It has decided not to concern itself with
the question I raised.
That's why, for this kind of question, open source and free software
give different answers. Q.E.D.
Third, you're replicating the careless error of that other guy on this
mailing list who (badly) quoted Torvalds as supposedly being an obvious
spokesman for open source (when he has in fact not purported to do that
at all): You're rather blatantly disregarding the _truly_ obvious
spokesmen for that movement -- the people who for almost a decade have
_been_ the literal spokesmen:
If you're talking about the OSI, I did not disregard them. However,
my mention of Torvalds was neither careless nor an error. He is as
influential as any of today's OSI board members in shaping and
presenting the open source viewpoint--whether he claims to speak for
anyone else or not. That's a statement of the facts as best I know
them. I consider him an open source opinion leader, not that I like
it.
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