Free Software Foundation Celebrates Its 35th Birthday

[chocolate]

All 5 of them? Or are we doing the usual "Open source is libre when it's convenient for us and evil open source when it's not" nonsense?

Ah yes, sweet derision.

You do know that saying something doesn't make it true? Nothing the FSF has created since the split with the OSI has gained any major market penetration. That's just a fact you can't try to deny like you're Trump or something.

Well yes, it's hard for a list of suggested libre-friendly hardware to gain market penetration. I mean, it's just a poor list.
Did you mean GNU?

You can't just try to claim ownership of OSI and other non-FSF projects because they use some variation of GPL.

I'm fairly sure I never did. Does the OSI even endorse the GPL alongside permissive licenses such as the Apache-2.0? I don't think what you wrote here makes any sense.

The fact that they haven't moved to GPLv3 says heaps [...]

The fact that Linux hasn't moved to the GPLv3 says nothing in particular with regards to the FSF, whose 35th birthday we are celebrating, just to remind everybody what this topic is about. In my previous post, I mentioned Linux being GPLv2-licensed just to reiterate that not being licensed under the latest version of the GPL doesn't make it any more permissively licensed. That was to imply that, in my opinion, its success is at least partially attributable to the GPL. I don't believe it would have been more successful, had it employed a permissive "open source" license.

[...] and the fact that they're still on GPLv2 says nothing when the GPL is set up in a way that makes it near impossible to license a major project like the Linux kernel that has been licensed under GPL.

I'm not sure I get the meaning of this sentence. I suppose you meant: it's hard to re-license a project that has previously been licensed under the GPL, hence why Linux hasn't moved away from the GPLv2 (perhaps implying it would have moved to a license other than the GPLv2, excluding the GPLv3, if it were easier to do so).
Well, it's certainly hard, yes. Libre software is supposed to remain libre, it's a feature. Copyright ownership of the code requires planning if major restructuring is expected to take place.

Even just a move to another version of GPL is an absolute nightmare, as that VLC experienced few years ago when they had to go around trying to contact every contributor to ask for permission and having to re-write a whole bunch of code when they couldn't get in touch with the authors, they refused or were deceased.

True, that's why you can still (a) double-license your code, (b) willingly cease copyright to an entity, or (c) include a clause that permits re-licensing under any future version of the GPL, if you want to be forward-looking. Perhaps there are more options that I'm not aware of.

Nice try at "We're not robbing the bank, we're liberating the money" kind of thinking there, but the un-pragmatic nature of Stallman and the FSF is well documented. They're known to not budge an inch on anything, requiring companies to open source literally everything and intentionally antagonizing companies who won't do as they say. With the FSF it's genuinely a case of "Do exactly as we tell you to do, nothing else is sufficient" and the OSI split apart because of this non-productive and needlessly antagonistic attitude.

I didn't try to paint things differently from what they really are, it was genuinely my point of view.
So you mean that Stallman and the FSF are examples of stubbornness that gets in the way of pragmatism. I don't know. Stallman has also been criticized for suggesting the double-licensing of Qt under both the (L)GPL and a proprietary license for commercial use. I'd say that was an example of pragmatism: instead of not having any libre version of Qt, we now have one, although not all of Qt is strictly libre.

This is also the reason why the FSF is for the most part academics and hobbyists working on projects with no or very limited commercial use mostly for their own use while the OSI has gotten loads of industry and major corporations like IBM to come into the open source space. In other words the OSI understands that academics can't possibly win alone and that you need to get industry involved to win against proprietary closed source software while the FSF refuses to be anything but a bunch of academics fighting against big bad industry, taking jabs at them and antagonizing them at every opportunity.

IBM also made grandiose video advertisements for "Linux", at a time when the only viable userspace for it was GNU.

Again, the fact that something is GPL licensed doesn't make it something the FSF can actually take credit for.

But... did I claim that? At least the FSF has a history of protecting GPL-licensed software, which means protecting the GPL itself, and by extension all libre software licensed under a version of the GPL. That's important work! And the only work that matters for such a foundation, after raising awareness and promoting their ideals.

As for permissive licenses, there's plenty of very prominent software under permissive licenses like Apache (still the #1 webserver) and BSD with derivatives.

Eh, okay, though Apache (web server) is not user-facing, and the homonymous foundation is mostly a code cemetery. BSD would be similar to Android: only successful when redistributed as 100% proprietary (e.g. Sony's downstream of FreeBSD for the PlayStation).

Pig headed adherence to ideals does come at a cost as shown by how the FSF has more or less been a joke for the last decade at least. A few bitter academics writing code mostly for their own personal use complaining about people less hostile to business being more successful and, like you, trying to take credit for their success when confronted with their lack of any new successful projects after the FSF-OSI split in the late 90s.

I'll just discard the personal attacks. Your bullet spread is impressive, but it now seems clearer to me that your original aim was to deride the FSF for, somehow, not being productive enough since the OSI came about. I don't know... is the OSI "active" in any meaningful way, if we are to make a comparison?

[acobar]

All 5 of them? Or are we doing the usual "Open source is libre when it's convenient for us and evil open source when it's not" nonsense?


You do know that saying something doesn't make it true? Nothing the FSF has created since the split with the OSI has gained any major market penetration. That's just a fact you can't try to deny like you're Trump or something. You can't just try to claim ownership of OSI and other non-FSF projects because they use some variation of GPL.


The fact that they haven't moved to GPLv3 says heaps and the fact that they're still on GPLv2 says nothing when the GPL is set up in a way that makes it near impossible to license a major project like the Linux kernel that has been licensed under GPL. Even just a move to another version of GPL is an absolute nightmare, as that VLC experienced few years ago when they had to go around trying to contact every contributor to ask for permission and having to re-write a whole bunch of code when they couldn't get in touch with the authors, they refused or were deceased.



Nice try at "We're not robbing the bank, we're liberating the money" kind of thinking there, but the un-pragmatic nature of Stallman and the FSF is well documented. They're known to not budge an inch on anything, requiring companies to open source literally everything and intentionally antagonizing companies who won't do as they say. With the FSF it's genuinely a case of "Do exactly as we tell you to do, nothing else is sufficient" and the OSI split apart because of this non-productive and needlessly antagonistic attitude.

This is also the reason why the FSF is for the most part academics and hobbyists working on projects with no or very limited commercial use mostly for their own use while the OSI has gotten loads of industry and major corporations like IBM to come into the open source space. In other words the OSI understands that academics can't possibly win alone and that you need to get industry involved to win against proprietary closed source software while the FSF refuses to be anything but a bunch of academics fighting against big bad industry, taking jabs at them and antagonizing them at every opportunity.



Again, the fact that something is GPL licensed doesn't make it something the FSF can actually take credit for. As for permissive licenses, there's plenty of very prominent software under permissive licenses like Apache (still the #1 webserver) and BSD with derivatives.



Pig headed adherence to ideals does come at a cost as shown by how the FSF has more or less been a joke for the last decade at least. A few bitter academics writing code mostly for their own personal use complaining about people less hostile to business being more successful and, like you, trying to take credit for their success when confronted with their lack of any new successful projects after the FSF-OSI split in the late 90s.

Where are the proofs of your allegations?

gcc is doing pretty well and, as so, are libc and many other projects under FSF/GNU umbrella or using GPL license.

I have seen many people picking one or other project that, somehow got stuck, to create the impression that they, somehow, failed (I don't agree with many of this kind of assignment) because of GPL. At minimum, this is misleading and, many times, it is worst, is a mischievous complaint to fill some agenda.

As already explained to exhaustion, if you want to use something that is of high level quality, it is more than fair to give something back.

[wswartzendruber]

How about an App Store that doesn't limit user's rights to modify the software their receive (or at least the (L)GPL'ed parts) and run the things they want to run the way they want to run them? Or one that doesn't explicitly disallow certain licenses to be used?

I don't control the App Store or Apple, but I do control how I license my work.

Yea, thats exactly what the LGPL wants to prevent. So if you wanna publish on the App Store, you gonna have to write that code yourself.

You seem to be mistaken. I am not working on any app, I am working on library code. Code that will not be published under LGPL.

Pretty sure you can statically link with an LGPL library. You just have to provide a way for the user to relink the program with a modified version of the library.

"Hey, use my library! But if you statically link, you have to provide your end users with a method of replacing your shipment of my component with your own."

[JMB9]

No one has done more for M$ than the GPL ...

Dunning-Kruger effect at its best - ROFL!

But yes, after pressing RMS out without anyone stepping up to really educate people about the importance of freedom OF THE USERS concerning IT techniques, such posts will become even more popular ... thus this birthday is not funny at all ... it is more like an elongated funeral.

And as all companies want to participate on the strength of GNU/Linux one can see more and more programs under not GPL license to be able to harden there monopolies even with open source software (not free one - GPL2 is really weak) ... and not to speak about HW in times of Intel {CS}ME or AMD PSP ...

The GPL may be the one thing shining for a long time ... while the FSF ... well - a nice place for GNOME and systemd developers right now.

But this is only my humble opinion ... and looking about BSD (and its derivatives like macOS ) it may have some firm ground.
Especially if ESR is right and MS will resurrect its monopoly on Linux (the GPL2-ed kernel - not GNU/Linux as for distros - right )...
which may get a user's nightmare similar to "Linux" on Android where users are enslaved like on iOS ... with same fee for app stores ...
Wonder over wonder ... monopolists acting the same ...

So there is a reason while the term master/slave is no longer welcome to be used ... it is a perfect name for what is going on right now.
And RMS has warned about lack of control for a long while.

I do hope RMS is well - and may be visible in near future to really promote digital freedom as a human right as still seems to be the only one doing this consequently - not as another word for flatrate.

[HEL88]

Who cares what China does with Open Source code?

Western companies spend billions of dollars for code, China take this code and sell us their product with this code. Who earn money? China .

What is China doing with GPL code?

Build own, independent IT and spent for it small amount of money.

USA nad UE slowly lose position and open source speed up this process - in my opinion.

Without open source they would pay for lincense like for Windows and Wesern countries would have money and control.

So, in short term thanks to open source we see beautiful grow our IT, but in long term open source will cause that we faster and harder loose this geopolitical battle.

[acobar]

Western companies spend billions of dollars for code, China take this code and sell us their product with this code. Who earn money? China .



Build own, independent IT and spent for it small amount of money.

USA nad UE slowly lose position and open source speed up this process - in my opinion.

Without open source they would pay for lincense like for Windows and Wesern countries would have money and control.

So, in short term thanks to open source we see beautiful grow our IT, but in long term open source will cause that we faster and harder loose this geopolitical battle.

Sorry to shake your world, but I very much prefer our good old Earth to have distributed power across the entire globe. If there is something that the last 70+ years have proved, it is that we can not trust "super-powers" to act wisely in the best interest of humanity or, for the matter, to be fair to all life forms that cohabit our pretty little blue dot, despite the gigantic scientific progress we experienced on this period.

[chocolate]

Western companies spend billions of dollars for code, China take this code and sell us their product with this code. Who earn money? China .

> What is China doing with GPL code?
Build own, independent IT and spent for it small amount of money.

USA nad UE slowly lose position and open source speed up this process - in my opinion.
Without open source they would pay for lincense like for Windows and Wesern countries would have money and control.
So, in short term thanks to open source we see beautiful grow our IT, but in long term open source will cause that we faster and harder loose this geopolitical battle.

That's what happens with "open source". An adversary steals your code and never gives back anything if they don't want to.
With libre software, you never lose your technological edge to an adversary if the software is user-facing: you buy the product, you are entitled to the source.

Since "open source" was born to appease capitalist companies in the USA, who would deem "free" software too scary (tying into the USA's rampant illiteracy...), you could go as far as to say that the USA boosted China's communism/dictatorship through capitalism and permissive licenses.

[qarium]

I say that open source code is woth billons of dollars and eg. China has this code for free.

but did we not start the FOSS/FLOSS movement to make sure all humans also chinese humans get the code for free ?

are chinese people bad humans only because they like FOSS/FLOSS software ?

[moilami]

Been a while since saw last time troll post generate so heated discussion. Guess there is some controversies hidden.