The Free Software Foundation Is Trying To Figure Out Its Future

[anda_skoa]

The FSF is the PR half of GNU, and as GNU are the ones developing GIMP. The problem is that in order to be a Free Software supporter you have to be an ideologue about software licensing and in utter terror of companies taking your code and not releasing their changes to it

Not exactly.
There is no problem with not releasing changes, the problem is releasing changed software but not the changed sources.
I.e. the "make sources available" clauses of the Copyleft licenses triggers at distribution.

It is not so much of what others use your code for, but about ensuring that a 3rd party can do the same thing with the 2nd party's software that the 2nd party could do with yours.
I.e. establishing transitivity.

LLVM/CLang is fear mongered about for example simply because it's permissively licensed and thus to Stallman it's doubleplus badthink, because it's possible that some company could theoretically someday take the code and add proprietary extensions to it or use it in a proprietary product.

The problem with LLVM/CLang is not it being used in a proprietary product but the risk that proprietary extensions impose artifical restrictions.
E.g. a new language front end only made available on a specific platform or restricting what kind of software it can be used on.

A risk is of course no certainty, but since everyone's threshold for gambling is different, some will find the risk worthwhile and others will prefer risk-reduced or risk-free solutions.

Cheers,
_

[rabcor]

The FSF is the PR half of GNU, and as GNU are the ones developing GIMP. The problem is that in order to be a Free Software supporter you have to be an ideologue about software licensing and in utter terror of companies taking your code and not releasing their changes to it, not because you desire any feature that they might give you but that they're turning your code "evil" by making it proprietary. LLVM/CLang is fear mongered about for example simply because it's permissively licensed and thus to Stallman it's doubleplus badthink, because it's possible that some company could theoretically someday take the code and add proprietary extensions to it or use it in a proprietary product.

Woops, I didn't know that they're the ones developing GIMP, but that at least partially explains the terrible UI, and keyboard shortcuts... makes me shudder. But otherwise yeah, that was the gist I had of it, except everything they're doing, they're doing pretty badly (except maybe licenses, that might be the one thing they're not bad at, I can't say if they're actually good at it, but they're not bad at that one thing)

Either way, their future as things are going is pretty bleak, it is pretty bleak exactly because of this fearmongering you mentioned, it is too "extreme" too restrictive for people to really connect with it (which is why we have Linux). Considering their future is definitely the right thing to do at this point, or 10 years ago. I did not come to Linux because I had heard about it from FSF, I heard about FSF because I went over to Linux recently, and they look about as silly as religious extremists to me, they take things just a few steps too far, and that pushes people away (which is why their PR movement is such a MASSIVE failure, FSF destroys itself and most of it's purpose simply by being itself)

They are going upwind, upstream towards a waterfall, they can continue their course, god forbid someone should... But they will not succeed, they can't succeed, it's not possible, at least not with these methods, they need to get smarter, they need to get better known, and they need to get "prettier". I'm not really acquainted enough with them to be able to give any advice on that, but well... make better interfaces (PRETTIER!) and think more about keyboard shortcuts in programs (follow trends, go with the flow for once in your life, it might just help a bit! maybe make some of your software (GIMP) usable, FSF can fight for what it fights for, it should not try to fight everything it can see fit to fight, like trends, trends are ok, unless you have a really good reason not to, follow trend. CTRL+D > CTRL+SHIFT+A, for one big step for gimpkind, one small step for gimp programmer.)

I mean it would be a start, think more about appearances, as a PR organization should, for PR, for social engineering, for everything they are trying to do, appearances are everything, and right now they don't look much better than a stick in the mud, it stands out, but it's still just a stick in mud, nobody cares about a stick in the mud.

I mean you have to admit they are a bit eccentric, Richard Stallman is their face, and that face doesn't carry cellphones of any kind around, (maybe he could turn a raspberry pi into a cell phone... oh wait, sim cards are proprietary, forget this idea). And hates when people don't call Linux "Gee N' You Forward Slash Linux" the name of software doesn't really have to indicate that it's derived off other software, I don't see the mpv guys complaining that bomi isn't mpv/bomi (or FSF complain that Krita isn't GIMP/Krita) or something of the sort, it should be enough that the code it is originally derived from is mentioned in the products history and similar things. In other words... eccentricity, usually not good for PR, unless you're a special kind of snowflake like Steve Jobs that everyone in the world loves, except those who know he was always a total ****face. Usually best to assume that you're not such a snowflake (but Linus Torvalds apparently is, otherwise everyone would hate him for his colorful language, so kudos Mr. Torvalds).

That would be another thing to look at. They need to study psychology to understand how to get people to listen to their sorry asses, that's the cold hard truth.

They need a new face (Richard Stallman doesn't cut it, which they would understand if they knew the basics of working a crowd, He's an important figure, but doesn't need to be the face.) rephrased or possibly refurbished ideologies (coming off as nutty religious extremists isn't working out, they need to sound more relatable if people are to listen even if the cause remains the same under the hood) they might even need a new name (maybe just to wash away and detach from the old one)


And well, you get the gist, the FSF is not working out for any of their purposes (except the very existence and maintenence of GPL) right now, they need a complete ground-up do-over. Or that's what I think, based on what I know.

[tajjada]

Well, I filled out the survey. I tried my best to be as constructive and helpful (but critical) as possible. I hope someone actually reads the paragraphs I wrote...

[starshipeleven]

Think about what you wrote, and try to substitute other ideas into it. "If our campaign to stop rapists does not attract users because we have poor publicity, apart from its ethical status, then the rapists don't deserve to be stopped."

Wrong substitution. This is the right word swap: "If our campaign to stop rapists does not attract users because we have poor publicity, apart from its ethical status, then our campaign does not deserve to succeed."

The ethics are completely irrelevant, if you don't do marketing right, things won't happen, period.

To make a real-life example:
Both Apple and Google spy stuff like crazy, yet when MS does the same (win10) they get huge amounts of flak from everyone.
Why? Because MS fails HARD at marketing (as always), while Apple and Google do have pretty good marketing teams.

Fighting an almost impossible battle can still be the right thing to do.

Fighting with very ineffective strategies is almost universally stupid, regardless of the reason you are fighting for.

If American abolitionists in the 1820s had given up, the chain of events leading to the 13th Amendment would have never happened.

Slavery was abolished for economic reasons, ideology wasn't a major factor.
A slave is an asset, and must be kept in decent work conditions or its value is lost, has to be guarded, must have some kind of place to sleep, you must feed the family too (again assets or investments) and so on. Especially if availability of new slaves isn't terribly high (like at the times).
A "free-willed" worker (at the times) isn't an asset, you don't usually care of his wellness nor of his family, and if he is ill/crippled/whatever you can simply fire him and replace him with a new one within days.

At the times, the usage of slaves in the South was just plain dumb and uneconomical, using "free-willed" workers would have costed MUCH less.
Which is one of the big reasons why the South had a crappy, weak economy.

[zanny]

So theres a lot of infighting and bickering here, but reading all this mess made me realize the FSF needs to ally with free culture movements in general like CC.

Part of the reason why GNU software is a usability nightmare is, one, a staunch adherence to dogma that 70s/80s Unix was the ultimate OS and to deviate is to regress, and two, that free software dogma only attracts developers and users sick of the bullshit of proprietary software. It is not really attracting the middlemen en masse you need to have proper UX and infrastructure around code, even if the code is good.

I'm always conflicted on IP, because if we got rid of it proprietary software would still be the name of the game. If publishers couldn't extort users for distribution rights, they would do it for updates and support. Unless you leak your source if its never published publicly anywhere there is no recourse without copyright, which is kind of funny in a way. It would still be way better than a draconian fucked up IP system that enables copyleft, but it still seems like you want an economic system that incentivizes the source of programs to be made public for the general good.

[doom_Oo7]

If free software cannot attract users on its own merits, apart from its ethical status, then it doesn't deserve success.

If people does not place ethics before anything, then these people do not deserve respect.

[starshipeleven]

free software dogma only attracts developers and users sick of the bullshit of proprietary software.

More like "attracts people that don't like to torrent-and-crack whatever proprietary software they need and have a modicum of understanding of what a computer is so they know what is an OS and so on", which is a very very small minority.

Seriously, I see something like 1 in 10 genuine Offices, the other 9 are NOT legit. For games is worse. All non-OEM windows I see are Pirate Editions, and quite a few get pirated "just because".

Unless FSF starts serious Apple-grade marketing campaigns, none is going to really care.

If publishers couldn't extort users for distribution rights, they would do it for updates and support.

Newsflash, all companies using opensource stuff don't sell it as their product because it would make 0 sense.
They use it to make a product they can sell and kinda cooperate sometimes with others to make such opensourced stuff better for mutual benefit.
The opensourced stuff is more like a tool to make a product than the product itself.

All developers working for hardware support in the kernel (working = paid development) make drivers for devices, so a physical product.

Same thing, 99% of electronic devices, even if the firmware itself is opensourced, what you buy is mostly a physical product.

The average businness-oriented stuff asks you to pay for support and it totally makes sense for them to do so.

Besides, the general trend is subscription-based licensing even for proprietary stuff.

it still seems like you want an economic system that incentivizes the source of programs to be made public for the general good.

Funny fact: the current economic system allows opensourcing without major issues, you just have to change businness model into "service-based"

If people does not place ethics before anything, then these people do not deserve respect.

The point here is that giving people what they deserve won't get you very far in spreading an ideology.

[silix]

If people does not place ethics before anything, then these people do not deserve respect.

think you need to have a look at reality..
For starters, moral values or at least their importance, are different from person to person, as is the definition of freedom (which stallman actually redefined for his agenda)
some may value human freedom (like being able to choose the preferred licensing for code one writes and owns) above all, and consider PCs and software for what they are (tools made to fulfill specific needs, or in general to make human life easier), others may value software freedom (as in being protected by evil corporations' interests) above all, and consider software's usefulness to man, of secondary or no importance (without realizing that it remains a tool nervertheless, and there's no point in any tool not fulfilling a need and not getting anyone to use it)
so, people may very well place ethics before anything, just not the same ethics as you..

on the other hand, not everyone gives the same importance to ALL aspects of his/her life, including what may constitute a marginal part of it
say, a MSF doctor could spend 99% of his time saving lives and helping refugees, yet be perfectly fine with not caring about FSF's ideology for the occasional time he uses a PC.. do you really think he would deserve no respect?