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Behind the Doors of the Free Software Foundation
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Aug 29, 2008 12:15 PM
from the what-would-you-say-ya-do-here dept.
from the what-would-you-say-ya-do-here dept.
Linux.com has an interesting look at the inner workings of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). "The purpose of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is probably obvious from its name -- but what does promoting free software mean in terms of everyday activity? Examining the roles of the organization shows how complex the FSF's advocacy role has become. It also reveals the range of services available to the free software community, and helps to explain how such a small group has had such a major influence on computer technology. As a 501(c)3 charity in the United States, the FSF is run by a board of directors. The current board includes FSF founder and president Richard M. Stallman and long-term member Henry Poole, but, in the last few years, new faces have appeared on the board."
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Thanks! (Score:5, Insightful)
As a user of Free Software for about 10 years now I would just like to say that I really appreciate the efforts of the FSF. No matter how much RMS is bashed and doubted he sticks to his ethics and invariably the projections he makes seem to come true to at least some extent.
Long live the FSF.
Re:Thanks! (Score:5, Insightful)
As a user of Free Software for about 10 years now I would just like to say that I really appreciate the efforts of the FSF. No matter how much RMS is bashed and doubted he sticks to his ethics and invariably the projections he makes seem to come true to at least some extent.
Long live the FSF.
I disagree with many of RMS's positions, but he has been vital to the open source cause. Sometimes we need extremists, and he is a good one. :)
Parent
Slippery Slope (Score:2)
By that definition, we also need bad extremists too. Or even gooderer good extremists. But who can out-Stallman Stallman?
--
I saved my karma for this?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're leading yourself to a rather pure philosophical argument. But I might agree that we need "bad" extremists.
Having nutjobs on both ends of a spectrum lends the rest of us (middle of the bell curve) a bit of perspective, whether it's in regards to technology, politics or religion.
Of course, it might be that my "good" extremists are your "bad" extremists and so on.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, it might be that my "good" extremists are your "bad" extremists and so on.
That's why I don't think of it as a bell curve but more of a massively multidimensional continuum with all sorts of localised minima and maxima. And possibly the occasional wormhole, at least when projecting to a reduced set of criteria.
Which would sound like a rather obtuse argument for moral relativism, unless you accept that these deliberations are part of the process and cannot be meta. Which I just did.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We need extremists to start. You need middle of the road people to keep it going. When the extremist stay there to long there is a point where their extreme views move from being progressive to oppressive. As using Free Software for over a decade myself. I feel RMS is starting to make Open Source more oppressive then progressive.
We should honor people for what they did but we shouldn't keep them there for ever in a changing world. That would be like saying George Washington would make a good president for 2
I disagree with the whole framework (Score:5, Insightful)
Having principles is not extreme. It's actually not really possible *not to have them.
Abandoning your principles when they're inconvenient is not "moderate".
If you claim to have principle X, and abandon it when it's inconvenient, your *actual principle is "convenience", and it coincided with principle X for awhile.
X doesn't suddenly become extreme because it's not your principle.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree with many of RMS's positions, but he has been vital to the open source cause.
RMS would be the first to tell you he's not at all interested in open source, which is a business model, not a cause.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
"As a user of Free Software for about 10 years now I would just like to say that I really appreciate the efforts of the FSF. No matter how much RMS is bashed and doubted he sticks to his ethics and invariably the projections he makes seem to come true to at least some extent."
Ditto!
Thanks
Re: (Score:2)
You're welcome!
(new fsf member)
Re:Thanks! (Score:4, Interesting)
To those not aware, the FSF Associate Membership program [fsf.org] (referral link) is more of a supporter appreciation program. As such, Associate Members do not speak on behalf of the Free Software Foundation. Only FSF staff are authorized to make statements on behalf of the FSF.
Of course, I am an Associate Member (#795), so what I just said above is solely my opinion and not the official position of the Free Software Foundation.
Err... Or something.. like that. :)
Parent
Steve.....Steve.... (Score:5, Funny)
I know, I know, Stallman has the "moral high ground", a full head of hair, and everything, but what does it matter? You're filthy rich and he's a peasant selling GNU toys and t-shirts on the internet.
It's OK. Shhhh, sshhhh, it's OK...sh......
Lullaby, Lullaby, Lullaby,...shhh...
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I know he was talking about Microsoft, but his 1% market share is way off.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You sir should understand one thing - by using closed source OS software, you are fucking owned by whoever creates that software, and dependent completely on their mercy. Now go install your genuine 20 GB service packs while listening to the beautiful
Stallman pushed to the sidelines (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stallman pushed to the sidelines (Score:5, Informative)
While I believe it would be great for people to contribute to Free Software by buying a copy of Free as in Freedom from Amazon I would like to also point out (in a spirit that I hope RMS will appreciate) that you can read it online for free as well here [oreilly.com].
As far as I'm concerned, pay or not, the more people that read it the better.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. Right.
You went to the store to check this, and you can't even remember the software?
You know, my little twitter. You're so desperately trying to be a troll, just so at least *someone* interacts with you... and you're not even good at that one thing...
The funny thing is, that people would interact with you, if you just were nice and acted like you had value. Because then you would have value.
But who knows what shit happened to you, so you can't do that.
I hope you get well soon... I really do...
Re: (Score:2)
I saw the book at barnes & noble once. I checked the back page... typeset with FrameMaker (or Quark, but it definitely wasn't FREE nor Open Source).
Well if you follow the OP link to Amazon and then use their "Look inside" feature you can see the front cover, back cover and front and back flaps and they don't say anything about FrameMaker or Quark. So I call shenanigans.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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... and now tremendous projects like Emacs have to move ahead without him.Fixed that for you... Still, kudos for RMS, he made much for free software.
But what about those of us who don't have the disk space for a 5.89824e37 byte [gnu.org] executable?
Marginalized?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
These days, Stallman spends much of his time traveling to promote free software. However, contrary to what outsiders might expect, as president, he remains closely involved with FSF policy, asking frequently for status reports and making policy decisions that do not require other members of the board.
Moreover, Brown says, "Richard can be very hands-on in relation to a specific target that he needs to be speaking about."
You call that marginalized?
Re:Stallman pushed to the sidelines (Score:5, Informative)
So you are arguing that reproducing is on par, talent-wise, with writing Emacs?
If that were true, we'd have a lot more text editors to choose from.
Parent
Re:Stallman pushed to the sidelines (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Richard is a world class prick who cares about one single thing only, free software.
Parent is clearly trolling -- http://www.stallman.org/ [stallman.org] has plenty of non-software things that Stallman clearly cares about.
Importance of FSF (Score:5, Insightful)
It is hard to grasp the importance of FSF, because one cannot see it until it is taken away. Free software is a good way to improve society as a whole just like the concept of a wheel, People use those free software all the time just like how wheels are incorporated in most of our technologies. Can anyone imagine what are the ramifications of a tightly controlled licensing scheme on wheel technology based fully on economics?
FSF has doors? (Score:5, Funny)
That's not really "open" if you ask me.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
That's not really "open" if you ask me.
No one said the doors were shut :-)
Behind the DOORS? (Score:4, Funny)
Are you sure the FSF has DOORS?
I'd imagined the FSF as a sort of a Tepee or maybe a Mongolian Yurt, with maybe a flap or something.
Never anything as solid and 'non-open' as a door.
Re:Behind the DOORS? (Score:5, Funny)
Tepee sounds about right. No Gates, no Windows, Apache inside...
Parent
Live Free Or Die (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes I know, that's a Unix saying.
Since I was old enough to comprehend building computers, I have been running Linux. Having open source has directly affected my life. Thanks FSF and the OSS community for giving me interest, and the biggest part, being able to have development tools and code that I can learn with and from. With most commercial products costing ALOT of money, Open Source gave me the ability to have corporate sized products, for no cost. And Microsoft fans out there I think realize this too. Anyone in the computer world at some point recognizes what FSF and the bunch has done to the technology based world.
oh shit, is this post about Steve Ballmer? shit, I'll delete all my bootleg M$ software, I PROMISE!!
Interesting comment below the article: (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice way to gloss over the fact that the FSF has essentially failed to grasp the point that the only way free software will be perceived as a valid replacement for proprietary software is if it is a 1:1 replacement. gNewSense's latest release should prove that FOSS developer's time would be better spent at improving their software rather than wasting their time with the FSF. Especially considering that the FSF is run in a non-democratic manner.
Thankfully other organizations exist that realize this and don't attempt to have us all waste time as the defective by design campaign does.
While I don't agree with this comment in all aspects, I do believe an important part of promoting free software is to give incentives to free software coders, especially those in charge of replacing popular proprietary products that still don't have a free-software equivalent.
Free as in... (Score:5, Funny)
I think they have something to do with free beer or speech.
Free something. I can't remember. It's Friday and I've been drinking.
Re:Free as in... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Miguel de Icaza used to be on FSF Board (Score:3, Interesting)
But he was kicked off the board due to mono releasing its class libraries under the MIT/X11 license instead of LGPL. You would have thought that MIT/X11 would be freer than the LGPL. MIT/X11 is like the BSD no advertising clause license.
Not this old debate again. (Score:3, Insightful)
Free means different things to different people. The GPL provides more freedom to users by requiring coders to give back to the community. The MIT/X11/BSD style license provides more freedom to coders, because they don't have to give back to the community.
Re: (Score:2)
Free means different things to different people. The GPL provides more freedom to users by requiring coders to give back to the community. The MIT/X11/BSD style license provides more freedom to coders, because they don't have to give back to the community.
What license style increases user freedom by increasing the number of apps available to use?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think there's a correlation. One could argue that the MIT/X11/BSD style increases the number of apps one can BUY, but it doesn't increase the number a user can use for free. So the license isn't increasing the number of apps the user could use, the user is increasing the number of apps they can use, by paying for them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Free means different things to different people. The GPL provides more freedom to users by requiring coders to give back to the community. The MIT/X11/BSD style license provides more freedom to coders, because they don't have to give back to the community.
A perfect example for this is when the Cedega project promised to give back to the community their advances with DirectX under WINE. Fortunately (for them), WINE was licensed under the X11 license. Guess what happened? Nothing, that's what happened! Thanks to that, DirectX work under WINE froze for several years, leaving users pissed off and having to purchase Cedega for something they were supposed to enjoy for free in the first place.
And for this reason, I'm glad that Stallman kicked Miguel out of the FSF
Re:Not this old debate again. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Not this old debate again. (Score:4, Insightful)
And let's just look at the alternative here.
If Cedega gave all the code back to wine, then wine would be as good as Cedega, and nobody would buy Cedega. Cedega would thus close down which would
leaving DirectX work under WINE frozen for several years.
I fail to se how that is a better solution.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Because people said "why work on DirectX? The Cedega guys promised they'd give us the code". Remember that Cedega weren't the ONLY people who knew how to implement DirectX under wine, but they cheated on WINE so that NOBODY worked on it and they'd be ahead of WINE.
Only after the WINE team reacted, changed the license to GPL (or LGPL in case of winelib) and began to work, WINE recovered.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong, the GPL removes a few immoral choices from a small set of people (coders and software company owners) and increases choices for a larger set (end users.) And I think it's only a small set of people that hate RMS, the people who want to profit off the work of others without giving anything back.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, because they aren't gifts, and no one ever said they were. Thus the strings, which ensure more freedoms for end users. People who wish to extend and distribute the software receive a license to do so in exchange for a promise to share their work. This is a commercial exchange, not a gift.
The other licenses have strings as well, for instance, attribution. A gift wouldn't require attribution. These licenses also involve commercial exchange, even though the promises extracted in exchange for the license ar
Re:Not this old debate again. (Score:4, Interesting)
As a society, for any meaningful definition of freedom, you do indeed have to have it forced upon you. You're not one of these naive fools who thinks having no rules is equivalent to freedom, are you? Anarchy only provides freedom to the biggest guy.
Parent
Not Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
The purpose of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is probably obvious from its name...
That's a pretty clueless statement. If it were obvious, then we wouldn't have to make the Beer/Speech distinction every time we used the word.
One reason this is unclear: to many of us, it's not at all clear that whether you have the right to hack somebody else's code is a first amendment issue. In a technical sense, I suppose it is. But that's the same technical sense that Comcast uses when they assert their right to give us 500 channels of crap. Even if legally valid, it's hard to get worked up over it.
The main contribution of the FSF to posterity has been to create the Open Source movement, which has proven to be a superior model for large-scale collaboration than the old standards committees it replaced. This was obvious to me the first time I compared early prototype of open source desktops like KDE and GNOME to their committee-managed predecessors, such as (the late, unlamented) CDE [wikipedia.org]. Even early betas of the OS desktops had more functionality than CDE, which had been under development for many years.
But does FSF boast about their role in inventing Open Source? They do not. They consider OS, arguably their biggest accomplishment, as a distraction. That's because the FSF is about changing all the intellectual property rules as it relates to software, not about better development models. And IMHO, they don't really have a lot to show for 25 years of attacks on that particular windmill.
Behind the doors of the FSF... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)