Hello, i'm using free software and GNU/Linux for a long time and i think the work from FSF(E) is really important and it's important to have a complete free Operating System too.
But what i don't understand is why should every software be free or why non-free software shouldn't exist? I have read a lot of things, www.gnu.org/philosophy and the german book "Freie Software zwichen Privat- und Gemeineigentum" but i couldn't find a answere of my question. There are a lot of arguments about the advantage of free software but no real arguments why non-free software is always bad. If i understand it, many people argue with the influence of software on our life. But other things has also great influence on our life. For example before email and instant messaging, the phone was (and maybe is today too) the most used way to communicate. But no one has access to the "source code" of this communication and can change it, copy it and so on. Is the phone therefor a bad thing? Basically what i want to say is, maybe software isn't always that important, maybe there are scopes were software is just a tool or just entertainment. Is it really bad if this software is not free? Sure you can argue that's always good to have control over your PC and can change a tool to do the job you want. But i think this is a argument pro free software and not again non-free software. I think free software has many advantages, in the first place for Hacker and "computer-freaks", what i mean is for people who use the computer to create new things and tweak it the way they like it. But today many people uses the computer just as a tool or as a toy. They aren't interested how it works, like they don't want to have the plan for their power drill, TV or phone. They just want to do their job and thats it.
What do you think. Are there situations were the question about the license is not that important? Or is it always important that every software is free, and why do you think it is?
Thanks, Markus
On 18-Jul-2005, Markus wrote:
But what i don't understand is why should every software be free or why non-free software shouldn't exist?
The seminal work on this is Richard Stallman's essay:
URL:http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html
The essay has been translated into many languages, links are at the bottom of that page.
www.gnu.org/philosophy and the german book "Freie Software zwichen Privat- und Gemeineigentum" but i couldn't find a answere of my question. There are a lot of arguments about the advantage of free software but no real arguments why non-free software is always bad.
My understanding of it is that useful information in any form is naturally shared between people, and this is a normal, helpful thing to do with it, regardless of its subject or form.
Is freedom always a good thing? If the benefit outweighs the harm, yes. I believe that sharing useful information is an act which is so beneficial that its freedom should be unrestricted.
To restrict the freedom of people to share useful information is an exercise of power over others.
Is exercise of power always bad? If the harm outweighs the benefit, yes. I believe that the harm (to all people) caused by attempting to restrict the freedom of others to share useful information is far more than the possible benefit (to a single person, or very few people) of the restriction.
I think free software has many advantages, in the first place for Hacker and "computer-freaks", what i mean is for people who use the computer to create new things and tweak it the way they like it. But today many people uses the computer just as a tool or as a toy. They aren't interested how it works, like they don't want to have the plan for their power drill, TV or phone. They just want to do their job and thats it.
They also want to be able to use it for any purpose they need to, now or in the future, without some "usage license" gatekeeper getting in the way. For this, they require Freedom 0.
They also want to be able to share it with their friends and colleagues when they start working on similar tasks. For this, they require Freedom 2.
They also want to be able to get help using and adapting the software, and to get timely improvements and fixes, on fair terms for a fair price. Thus, there needs to be a market for third parties to understand how the software works and offer their services to the users. For this, they require that Freedom 1 and 3 are available to anyone.
All users of a piece of software, therefore, need all four of the software freedoms to be available to everyone, even if they do not enumerate them or use them personally.
URL:http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
On Mon, 2005-07-18 at 03:09 +0200, Markus wrote:
If i understand it, many people argue with the influence of software on our life. But other things has also great influence on our life. For example before email and instant messaging, the phone was (and maybe is today too) the most used way to communicate. But no one has access to the "source code" of this communication and can change it, copy it and so on. Is the phone therefor a bad thing?
If you speak about the classic landlines phones, you do not need any source, as no software is necessary for your own device. Land line phones are very simple and you can understand how to "fix" it by just opening it and looking at how it works if you do not know it already. You can also change it so you can have a phone that blinks lights instead of ringing for example.
For cellphones things change, they are full of software and proprietary (even if communication protocols are known). Is it bad? Imho yes, I would like to be able to customize my phone (mostly stripping out unnecessary buggy crash prone software), assure nobody can access my phone without my consent etc... There are some Linux based Cell phones now, but they are far from free and most of the devices underneath use proprietary "firmware".
Simo.
Markus gnufriend@gmx.de wrote:
If i understand it, many people argue with the influence of software on our life. But other things has also great influence on our life. For example before email and instant messaging, the phone was (and maybe is today too) the most used way to communicate. But no one has access to the "source code" of this communication and can change it, copy it and so on. Is the phone therefor a bad thing?
Simply, yes. My GSM phone is pretty good (and on the whole, better than most others that I have seen so far), but some parts of its user interface don't fit me, there is one missing feature which annoys me and there are a couple of easy ways to crash it. I'd like to fix it, but even if I had someone willing to do it for a reasonable price, or time to do it myself, I don't have the source code or any way to upload the new software.
That probably costs me a little time each week and causes some unhappiness. To use your power drill comparison: if my power drill could be improved simply, I'd take it to the tool shop to be fixed. I couldn't do that with a GSM phone when I tried.
One of my previous phones (a Bosch "Coconut") was so closed that even a fairly common modification wouldn't work on it, despite what the supplier said (who had been told by Bosch). The failed attempt cost me some money and a few weeks waiting, but eventually the supplier admitted a mistake and paid some compensation. I doubt they paid enough people to seriously hurt the supplier (because the phone wasn't that popular), but it seems like that unnecessary closedness hurts companies too.
There are also the "tinfoil hat" concerns from not being able to study the source: do you know your phone isn't doing a tee to the black helicopters?
Those are just a few of the more obvious problems with non-free. Having free software is nearly always better than not, in all fields. It gives you more options. As a consumer or a business, more options often means more flexibility and safety.
On Mon, 2005-07-18 at 02:09 +0100, Markus wrote:
But other things has also great influence on our life. For example before email and instant messaging, the phone was (and maybe is today too) the most used way to communicate. But no one has access to the "source code" of this communication and can change it, copy it and so on. Is the phone therefor a bad thing?
Hello Markus,
Indeed the phone system was closed in the extreme for many many years and competition was really stifled.
Mainly for this reason the phone industry didn't really move forward that much for a long time until Governments deregulated the industry.
When there were more companies competing in the telecoms area people started to innovate more.
This could be a good argument for Free software. With Free software providing high quality solutions it drags closed source vendors along who then have to "raise the bar"
Basically what i want to say is, maybe software isn't always that important, maybe there are scopes were software is just a tool or just entertainment. Is it really bad if this software is not free? Sure you can argue that's always good to have control over your PC and can change a tool to do the job you want. But i think this is a argument pro free software and not again non-free software. I think free software has many advantages, in the first place for Hacker and "computer-freaks", what i mean is for people who use the computer to create new things and tweak it the way they like it. But today many people uses the computer just as a tool or as a toy. They aren't interested how it works, like they don't want to have the plan for their power drill, TV or phone. They just want to do their job and thats it.
I agree. Consumers don't really care about how their technology works in general but they should be concerned about their rights.
For example Microsoft are making big advances in the digital media market. I suspect they would like nothing more than to be able to completely control the way you listen to your media or watch your film online as well as the number of times you watch it and crucially... the hardware device and protocols you use to watch it on.
As soon as technologies start to close up in this way (be controlled by a single vendor or group of vendors working to exclude competition) then consumers start to suffer.
So, yes. In my opinion software and the freedom to use software the way that I want to is very important to me.
Great discussion though :-)
~sm
Hi,
I would like to rephrase the question to:
Is non-free software always bad for consumers?
Lets say you buy a non-free car at a garage with a closed and locked hood and an exclusive service contract. You don't care for these restrictions, because you have no idea of what to do with an engine if you saw one. If your car breaks down you'll bring it to the garage.
But.... What if this garage has become unreachable? What if this garage has become more expensive than average? What if you doubt the competence of this garage? What if you have something which can boost your performance or safety of this car ? What if your neighbour is a mechanic and can repair your problems for free or a few bucks ?
Well it doesn't really matter, because you have no choice....
So imho restrictions or non-free software is always bad for consumers.
Steven
On Mon, 2005-07-18 at 11:09 +0100, Steven wrote:
Hi,
I would like to rephrase the question to:
Is non-free software always bad for consumers?
Lets say you buy a non-free car at a garage with a closed and locked hood and an exclusive service contract. You don't care for these restrictions, because you have no idea of what to do with an engine if you saw one. If your car breaks down you'll bring it to the garage.
But.... What if this garage has become unreachable? What if this garage has become more expensive than average? What if you doubt the competence of this garage? What if you have something which can boost your performance or safety of this car ? What if your neighbour is a mechanic and can repair your problems for free or a few bucks ?
What if you want to make a modification that is of little interest or commercial value to the garage but is very interesting or profitable to you?
With closed source (cars :) you can't make this kind of alteration easily
~sm
Is non-free software always bad for consumers?
[...snip...]
So imho restrictions or non-free software is always bad for consumers.
You answered your own question. :-)
Damn, you discoverd my rhetorical deception.... :)
Actually I reprashed Marks question. Than gave an answer
On 7/22/05, Alfred M. Szmidt ams@gnu.org wrote:
Is non-free software always bad for consumers?
[...snip...]
So imho restrictions or non-free software is always bad for consumers.
You answered your own question. :-)
On 22-Jul-2005, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
Is non-free software always bad for consumers?
[...snip...]
So imho restrictions or non-free software is always bad for consumers.
You answered your own question. :-)
Yes, a common method for showing the reasoning behind an conclusion.
On Mon, 2005-07-18 at 03:09 +0200, Markus wrote:
But what i don't understand is why should every software be free or why non-free software shouldn't exist? I have read a lot of things, www.gnu.org/philosophy and the german book "Freie Software zwichen Privat- und Gemeineigentum" but i couldn't find a answere of my question. There are a lot of arguments about the advantage of free software but no real arguments why non-free software is always bad.
Easy. Show me a situation where non-free software is good (note: by good I don't mean technically better but that the fact that it is non-Free is good), and there you will have the exception that breaks the "always".
So far I haven't found any situation where loosing one of the four freedoms is good, but I can be proved wrong. Can you help me?
If i understand it, many people argue with the influence of software on our life. But other things has also great influence on our life. For example before email and instant messaging, the phone was (and maybe is today too) the most used way to communicate. But no one has access to the "source code" of this communication and can change it, copy it and so on. Is the phone therefor a bad thing?
Not the phone per se, but the phone's software and architecture. One of the main aspects that actually causes non-free to be absurd is the fact that the cost of knowledge-dissemination should be as low as possible, and in digital media the cost is virtually zero.
So while I can't (yet) replicate a cell phone for virtually zero cost, I can do so with software, music, etc...
What do you think. Are there situations were the question about the license is not that important? Or is it always important that every software is free, and why do you think it is?
Many people take their freedom for granted, so they see no need to defend it or make sure it is there. Comfort is the greatest ally of freedom's enemies.
But eventually you will feel the need to exercise what you were once free to do, and when you cry out... it may be already too late.
As I said above, prove us there's a case where it is good that some software is non-free. All evidence points in the contrary, but there's nothing like some hard-fact against it to make one sure.
Rui
There is a well known and controversial case in the 802.11a/g area.
One vendor do distribute a linux driver wich is partially closed source. He provide a binary only Hardware Abstraction Layer code. The API of the HAL was not design specificaly for Linux kernel but is the same for the *BSD driver.
Discussion wether or not binary (or partially binary) driver are acceptable within the Linux kernel or respecting the GPL is not the point.
The point is in the argument for not making a fully GPL driver. The vendor claime that this would be dangerous as the hardware does not limit the frequency and power acceptable for the card transmission. Those control that must be done to respect the 802.11a/g are done in software in the HAL piece.
If some peaple outside the company were to write their own version of the HAL and that this version would not respect the standard, it would have dangerous consequence such as disturbing military radar frequency. This could be by mistake or intentionnal. Also boosting the power of your 802.11 card will be very unfair for your neighborg and if everybody does like you it will make the system useless.
Is this a place where the potential harm of free software is more dangerous than the good it make.
David GLAUDE
PS: Just to make sure, I am all for the right to thinker with the hardware you aquire and I am all against binary driver in Linux kernel... however I repeat here the argument of that vendor FAW (from memory as I did not find the link or remember the name of that vendor but his name is not relevant).
Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
On Mon, 2005-07-18 at 03:09 +0200, Markus wrote:
Easy. Show me a situation where non-free software is good (note: by good I don't mean technically better but that the fact that it is non-Free is good), and there you will have the exception that breaks the "always".
So far I haven't found any situation where loosing one of the four freedoms is good, but I can be proved wrong. Can you help me?
As I said above, prove us there's a case where it is good that some software is non-free. All evidence points in the contrary, but there's nothing like some hard-fact against it to make one sure.
Rui
On Mon, 2005-07-18 at 23:32 +0200, David GLAUDE wrote:
If some peaple outside the company were to write their own version of the HAL and that this version would not respect the standard, it would have dangerous consequence such as disturbing military radar frequency. This could be by mistake or intentionnal. Also boosting the power of your 802.11 card will be very unfair for your neighborg and if everybody does like you it will make the system useless.
Is this a place where the potential harm of free software is more dangerous than the good it make.
Sorry, but absolutely not. That a danger (?) that exists regardless of being Free Software or not.
Its a well known fact among security guys that you don't actually need the source code or rights to source code access to alter binary programs... just remember all those exploits to the [secret source code] Microsoft Windows operating system.
Rui
Let's say that I will be more dangerous having access to the code and beeing able to recompile after changing the power adjust function than changing random bytes with an hexadecimal editor into the HAL binary file.
It does not make security by obscurity less false or fake, but it is obvious that if I poke into a binary there are less chances that I will optain the expected goal (especially if the binary is CRC protected against peaple like me. ;-)
David GLAUDE
Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
On Mon, 2005-07-18 at 23:32 +0200, David GLAUDE wrote:
If some peaple outside the company were to write their own version of the HAL and that this version would not respect the standard, it would have dangerous consequence such as disturbing military radar frequency. This could be by mistake or intentionnal. Also boosting the power of your 802.11 card will be very unfair for your neighborg and if everybody does like you it will make the system useless.
Is this a place where the potential harm of free software is more dangerous than the good it make.
Sorry, but absolutely not. That a danger (?) that exists regardless of being Free Software or not.
Its a well known fact among security guys that you don't actually need the source code or rights to source code access to alter binary programs... just remember all those exploits to the [secret source code] Microsoft Windows operating system.
On Tue, 2005-07-19 at 00:11 +0200, David GLAUDE wrote:
Let's say that I will be more dangerous having access to the code and beeing able to recompile after changing the power adjust function than changing random bytes with an hexadecimal editor into the HAL binary file.
It does not make security by obscurity less false or fake, but it is obvious that if I poke into a binary there are less chances that I will optain the expected goal (especially if the binary is CRC protected against peaple like me. ;-)
Proprietary software cracks exist since a lot of time, so your claims that tinkering with an hex editor has less chances are not supported by facts. Do you think that bypassing hardware keys is esier than a software CRC check ?
Simo.
I am talking about mysefl not about a dedicated hacker. You see I am talking about the average programmer that think he will get more from his hardware, not a well organise internationnal team of free software programer that review each other code and have some kind of ethic. ;-)
I never create software cracks for proprietary software, but I do occasionaly modify free software to fit my need.
Software crack are most of the time done to bypass the licence scheme, not to enhance the software to do thing dangerous, not permited, that enable unintended use.
Another point is that it would be illegal to do it where modifying a free software is not per se.
By fucking with a military radar with the help of the hardware vendor is different from bypassing the security put in place by the hardware vendor.
The vendor might be liable for helping me doing it.
So there is a real interest for the vendor and the military industry to have some kind of software that are at least legaly protected from tinkering.
Are you in favor of freely accessible gun like in the US or do you prefer some restriction like in europe? What if software are able to kill?
David GLAUDE
Simo Sorce wrote:
On Tue, 2005-07-19 at 00:11 +0200, David GLAUDE wrote:
Let's say that *I* will be more *dangerous* having access to the code and beeing able to recompile after changing the power adjust function than changing random bytes with an hexadecimal editor into the HAL binary file.
It does not make security by obscurity less false or fake, but it is obvious that if *I* poke into a binary there are less chances that *I* will optain the expected goal (especially if the binary is CRC protected against peaple like *me*. ;-)
Proprietary software cracks exist since a lot of time, so your claims that tinkering with an hex editor has less chances are not supported by facts. Do you think that bypassing hardware keys is esier than a software CRC check ?
I am not talking about chances, I am talking about danger.
But yes from a statistical point of view randomly flipping bit (and I am an expert in "spontaneous random bit inversion") is less likely to be successfull that a carefull modification of the software source code and recompilation.
On Tue, 2005-07-19 at 07:51 +0200, David GLAUDE wrote:
I am talking about mysefl not about a dedicated hacker.
It's not good natured people which makes it bad, but bad natured people.
However, keep in mind that bad natured people are willing to go to dedicated hackers to get that knowledge, so the problem remains: access to code is irrelevant for that problem.
Rui
David GLAUDE wrote:
By fucking with a military radar with the help of the hardware vendor is different from bypassing the security put in place by the hardware vendor.
The vendor might be liable for helping me doing it.
So there is a real interest for the vendor and the military industry to have some kind of software that are at least legaly protected from tinkering.
The software may be legally, not technically, protected. The hardware still is not. If you write your own software, not based on the original one, you could still do bad things if the hardware allows it.
The military, if they're not completely stupid, would certainly be more interested in hardware that doesn't allow this kind of misuse in the first place.
Are you in favor of freely accessible gun like in the US or do you prefer some restriction like in europe? What if software are able to kill?
A better comparison would be: Would you want everybody, without restrictions or checks, to be able to purchase guns that do not fire -- unless you enter a special code to a built-in controller. Of course, this code is secret (and happens to be the same for all guns of this kind, BTW) ...
Frank
On 2005-07-18 23:32 +0200, dglaude@ael.be wrote:
Is this a place where the potential harm of free software is more dangerous than the good it make.
I agree with Rui, absolutely not. The proper place to do power limiting in a radio transmitter is in hardware or firmware in a ROM, not the driver. What if the driver would instruct the transmitter to put out 100 watts (1,000 times the normal 802.11 power output)? Most likely that would fry either the driver stage or the power amplifier, depending on the circuit design. Surely the hardware must have some sanity checks in place, what is wrong with extending those to set the limit to the legal maximum? If you need to be able to customize things without replacing hardware, put those settings in a small EPROM or EEPROM and have the firmware check what the maximum allowed power output or channel frequencies is/are.
Security by obscurity doesn't work. If someone wants a higher-powered 802.11 signal, it really doesn't take much to build an external amplifier. For a weak input signal, there are even commercial ones that would probably work perfectly fine available off the shelf, if you know what to look for. So that argument hardly works.
But what i don't understand is why should every software be free or why non-free software shouldn't exist?
Because it is unethical and immoral to enslave people.