Free software and open source philosophies differ sometimes with radically different outcomes

Fri Nov 17 04:21:42 UTC 2017

Hi J.B.,
I am going to quote you quickly without breaking the entire commentary as
it is more readable...

Mine was just a response and purely referred to the article, not an
abstract of all possible points. Pls pay close attention 😉

Re to your statement about self-contradictory part, you are in agreement
with what l stated, especially speaking of FS being existing decades before
and so on. I am a bit confused what you see as contradictory in my comments
as you are saying the same thing. Also pls do not lecture me with Stallman
and GNU links about this topic as l am fairly familiar with both entities
(Richard, the GNU project and the difference between FS and OSS). Actually
l clearly stated this as well but you seem to have ignored that part for
some reason.

I am a very big supporter of Free Software (since 1999) and one thing l
want to avoid happening in this community is to create another religion and
tribal war. I fully support the idea, philosophy behind the Free Software,
but it is time to get out of the nutshell and deal with reality, to
understand and listen also the other voices and opinions because yours is
not the sacred bible (with yours l refer to general FS audience of course,
not an individual acclamation). The GPL v3 is perfect example if you know
the full process/story, what was the first draft looked like and how its
been almost radically changed (luckily) before the release because it was
too extreme in its essence....

Last but not least, if you don't understand my comment about the theorem
and application of that theorem, then there is not much to say. Usually
when l don't understand something l stay quiet as perhaps it is something
beyond my understanding and l wouldn't reply with an attitude by just
saying l don't understand. I'd rather ask nicely if you can formulate
better or be more explicit and human readable.

It is a good practice if everyone puts their thoughts and opinions about
this topic (generally everywhere actually and not only here in this topic)
rather than almost all the time referring to Stallman's words (Stallman
said this and that, blabla). This is not because l despise or even ignore
Stallman's thoughts on the matter but for a simple reason that, if everyone
express their own opinions we might have the better way or even
understanding to create a self explanatory concept for everyone. It is just
to enrich the content and not remain static based on a single opinion.

That is the only way out l see and define the community. Otherwise there's
no point for us to discuss the matter here if we have to every time refer
to and stick with what Stallman said.

Hope this time.my comments are clear enough and pls take no offense,
nothing personal here😊

On 17 Nov 2017 12:13 am, "J.B. Nicholson" <jbn at forestfield.org> wrote:

Stefan Umit Uygur wrote:

> Personally, knowing and being involved closely to the development/history
> of both Free and Open Source Software during the past 20yrs I think there
> is no point of trying to compare the 2 entities or distinguish one from
> another.
>

There isn't just one point, there are multiple points to making this
distinction. I find the distinction very helpful to understand why certain
organizations make the choices they do.

I rather see them one depending on another, meaning without Free
> Software I doubt that the Open Source Software would have existed but
> not vice versa and that clears almost everything.
>
That is self-contradictory but begins to get into why the open source
development methodology and philosophy exists. In short, open source is (as
Stallman has pointed out) a right-wing reactionary counter to the free
software movement. The free software social movement existed for over a
decade before open source came along. Open source enthusiasts continue to
try to talk about the practical benefits of free software to business
without talking about the software freedom or the ethical underpinnings of
the social movement.

Also making a comparison in terms of value I don't see it as a correct
> approach, again referring to the relationship between the 2 that I have
> just mentioned above. I'd mostly describe Free Software as a theorem
> and the Open Source is the module that puts into application that
> theorem.
>
I don't understand what this means.

I know that the term Open Source is more popular these days simply
> because the term Free Software gets people into a confusion.
>
Open source gets more popular press because the computing-related media is
overwhelmingly corporate and desires gratis labor. Open source philosophy
never pushes any listener to think ethically or consider the ramifications
of something beyond a narrowminded developmental philosophy. In fact, as
has been known for years, open source advocates dispense with their
developmental philosophy if it gets in the way of placating a proprietary
software business. This is why https://www.gnu.org/philosophy
/open-source-misses-the-point.html has a section called "Different Values
Can Lead to Similar Conclusions…but Not Always" which includes this text:

[...] people from the free software movement and the open source camp
> often work together on practical projects such as software development.
> It is remarkable that such different philosophical views can so often
> motivate different people to participate in the same projects.
> Nonetheless, there are situations where these fundamentally different
> views lead to very different actions.
>
> The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute
> the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not
> guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily
> incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program that is powerful and
> reliable, even though it does not respect the users' freedom. Free software
> activists and open source enthusiasts will react very differently to that.
>
> A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the
> ideals of free software, will say, “I am surprised you were able to
> make the program work so well without using our development model, but
> you did. How can I get a copy?” This attitude will reward schemes that
> take away our freedom, leading to its loss.
>
> The free software activist will say, “Your program is very attractive, but
> I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. I will get my work done
> some other way, and support a project to develop a free replacement.” If we
> value our freedom, we can act to maintain and
> defend it.
>
I encourage reading the GNU Project essays on this. They're far better
written and draw important distinctions one needs to reach reasonable
conclusions.

Stefan Umit Uygur continues:

> Not everyone is keen to study the history or dig into the terminology or
> the meaning of something like the term Free Software. As Italian, it is
> easier in my language for example because in Italian the 2 terms are
> completely separate, Freedom and Free vs Libero and Gratis. That
> helps/helped a lot in my case but as Matthias mentioned in his article
> it is not the same in many other languages and in particular in
> English.
>
I think this trouble is vastly overstated. It doesn't take much time in
English to explain the difference in definitions of the word "free".
Besides, https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html gets
into how people misunderstand the phrase "open source". In reality, it's
unreasonable (but entirely business-friendly) to think that a handful of
words will adequately convey any idea. Believing this is so is buying into
the trap of concision (as explained in "Manufacturing Consent", Chomsky &
Herman's famous book and the 1992 documentary based on that book.

Either way, I find myself very comfortable to explain that the 2 are
> the exact same thing with addition of the reliance (or the existence
> should I say again) from one to another and I have no issues in using
> either of the terms.
>
Then you are likely teaching others something oversimplified and untrue. No
wonder you find it easy to do: as the old saying goes[1], "A lie travels
around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes.".

- the free software movement started over a decade before open source.
- the free software movement is a social movement, open source is a
developmental methodology.
- software freedom activists don't give into software non-freedom, open
source advocates sometimes do and this alone shows how the two philosophies
have radically different outcomes (thus are clearly not "the exact same
thing").
- free software doesn't give business primacy but treat business users as
equals, whereas open source philosophy was designed to speak to a business
audience and frequently gives into whatever business representatives say
they want. I think this is where the perverse attention to popularity comes
from as well.

Instead of telling people what you've been telling them, I recommend
pointing to the essays I've pointed to here. Stallman's book "Free as in
Freedom" is also instructive (and also contains these essays). You can
download a copy gratis, share it with anyone, or buy a printed copy from
the FSF.

[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/
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