Free Software is an abject failure. It may sound like a good concept on its face—especially with the kind of language often used to describe the movement and its opponents—but, when put under scrutiny, the institutions and practices that make up the Free Software movement fundamentally fail at their stated goals and harm the software ecosystem as a result.
  • Libb@piefed.socialEnglish
    11 days

    I think, by now, it is accurate to say that Free Software is an abject failure.

    Reading that post, I constantly felt that

    1. it was way too long. Trying too hard to pile up ‘proofs’ to make it sound less obvious that it was…
    2. very much hostile to the GPL, or to the FSF, or to Stallman, or all of them and their cousin too. (edit! not that it tried to hide it, obvioulsy)

    Even though we’re in the age of serial-anathema, I try to not mix my personal opinion and my own emotions, regarding anything or anyone, with what that anything or that anyone actually is. So, I have no idea if this post is ‘abject’ or not but it is indeed making all it can to make sure readers like myself can’t trust it much. Which is a pity, as

    1. it seems to point a few things worth discussing (just not in the way the op tries to present them).
    2. It also shows some signs of not understanding what the GPL is all about. But who am I to say that, not even being a dev, tsss…

    Alas, the post is what it is and if most of the time I’m glad to have discussions on subject matters I’m interested in with people I most likely don’t agree with, I’m not that interested in watching someone spat their hatred. And, after reading that post, I feel like I have wasted my time watching someone doing just that. I will be a lot more hesitant to click next time I see a link to this blog.

    Edit: typos.

  • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
    11 days

    Hey maybe if your whole deal is about the GPL you should title your long article “The GPL is etc” instead of using and then narrowly defining a broader label that makes it inflammatory bait.

    in nearly every Free Software project which exists today, there is a clear “owner” of the software

    Not remotely the same thing. Nobody can stop you from forking Linux. Several efforts have been made to replace the kernel with other philosophical approaches, other languages, other licenses, or straight-up other operating systems. They’re relatively obscure because the initial collaborative project works. I don’t even have to get into projects where a fork has overtaken the initial effort, or projects where the BDFL has stepped down and a committee directs the community’s development. Linux is a wild success story, in part because of the monumental difficulty of replacing and maintaining the once very well-funded entire Unix ecosystem.

    Stallman does exactly what he shunned in Why Software Should Be Free.

    Not the same thing, to such an extent that the author’s just lying. Expecting all software to be out of anyone’s control is not enforcing control. Fuck off if you even need that explained. Demanding software freedom is not some emotional attachment. It’s everything the author allegedly endorsed, two paragraphs earlier. RMS doesn’t just want his software to be free-or-else. He wants all software to be free-or-else. The GPL is just a foothold toward that no-masters goal, using and subverting the laws protecting proprietary software.

    the GPL has become so complicated

    If what you’re doing is also GPL then there’s no problem. Which is the entire fucking point. You only need to lawyer up if you’re playing stupid games, like putting modifiable software in an unmodifiable box, or keeping your changes secret because people access your copy remotely. Just make a good-faith effort and nobody will give you any shit.

    While I don’t agree with proprietary software as a concept, the fact that even lawyers—who are supposed to be expertly trained in the kind of language used in the license—are uneasy about its terms

    Working as intended. You idiot. What does being against proprietary software mean, if you can’t recognize that the license says ‘you have to stop doing proprietary software, to benefit from all this code you plainly want?’ Those expert lawyers correctly understand that requirement. They’re only “uneasy” when management asks them how to have the cake and eat it too.

    It has become especially clear how few people actually understand what the GPL does and does not permit based on the responses to changes that Red Hat made to how they offer their source code

    Stupid games, aforementioned. Red Hat’s fuckery should lead to a GPLv4 decisively shutting the loophole they have abused. You can’t bitch about gaps in the license and also bitch about fixing those gaps.

    all because a manufacturer put Linux in their products and blocked users from running their own modified software on that hardware. The absurdity of this line of thinking is compounded by the fact that this had absolutely nothing to do with the Linux kernel since it’s the system’s firmware that would stop users from running different software.

    Stopped reading. The author proclaims philosophical agreement, then fumbles their actual beliefs at every turn.

    What… the fuck… do you think Stallman was against… if not locked-down firmware? What was all of this about, besides users controlling software on the computers they bought and own?

  • one_old_coder@piefed.socialEnglish
    11 days

    He also states that the justifications one uses for keeping ownership of the software are emotional (i.e. “This software is mine, and I wish to control it”) and economical (i.e. “I wish to become wealthy by programming.”).

    He was right once again! That’s where I stopped reading, no time to waste on such bullshit that I have seen since the 90s.

  • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    11 days

    I mean just looking around one can see that it’s anything but an abject failure.

    How many thousands of systems are running Linux underneath?

    Let’s see - VMware, many commercial NAS systems such as Synology and Qnap, both which you can install almost any Linux-based software on, nearly every “smart” TV, Android phone, etc, etc.

    The thousands of free apps I can install - the only “abject failure” I can see is my own inability to know of all the available packages.

    In my best Red Foreman voice: Sit down and shut up, dumbass.