Silly season is upon us.
The Free Software Foundation is on the warpath against Microsoft's launch of Windows 7, as CNET's Ina Fried reports, denouncing Microsoft for "poisoning education," "invading privacy," and other evils.
The irony is that the Web site used to promote this latest rant uses a license that prohibits derivative works, a cardinal sin in Free Software Foundation theology.
The site uses the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, which allows people to copy and distribute a page, but not to actually modify and improve upon it ("No Derivative Works--You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.")
This sounds reasonable to me, but has traditionally not sounded reasonable to the Free Software Foundation.
For example, foundation founder Richard Stallman was in Argentina on Wednesday and when mentioning Wikipedia, he suggested that the open-source ethos depends upon freedom of text/code:
Wikipedia's text is free. It is released under a free license. That is the aspect to me that makes it ethical.
The freedom to modify that text is an essential freedom for which the Free Software Foundation has spent decades fighting. It's the first freedom listed at the top of its site:
Freedom...as defined by the Free Software Foundation
(Credit: Free Software Foundation)But apparently it's not an essential freedom for its anti-Microsoft screeds.
I'm not a fan of Microsoft, but the Free Software Foundation's hypocrisy on this is galling. Its logic is also a bit wearing, as Download Squad notes. The Free Software Foundation wants to make lack of freedom the source for all ills. It's not. It's just a good start.
Against this sort of dogmatism is a much more rational response to competition with proprietary software: the Processing project's FAQ. Processing has been positioned by some as an open-source competitor to Flash, but Processing's developers refuse to be drawn in and respond:
We're not targeting the same audience Flash. If we wanted to make a Flash killer, we'd have set out to do that and our stated purpose would have been more specific (and we'd have more on the site about "Processing vs. Flash" in the competitive shootout sense... right now we just have information about how the syntax differs so that people can make the transition).
We could have saved a lot of time if we just wanted to build a better Flash. But as two people, do you really think we can or should bother competing with a company as large as Macromedia? Macrodobe? Does anyone really want a "better" Flash? We certainly don't, so that's not an interesting goal for us.
There are things that are always going to be better in Flash, and other types of work that will always be better in Processing. But fundamentally (and this cannot be emphasized enough), this is not an all-or-nothing game... We're talking about tools. Do people refuse to use pencils because pens exist? No, you just use them for different things, and for specific reasons. If Processing works for you, then use it. If not, don't. It's easy! It's free! You're not being forced to do anything.
How refreshing--that "reason" thing. It would be nice if the Free Software Foundation spent more time coding the changes it would like to see in the world, rather than writing to Fortune 500 companies to advocate they switch to Microsoft alternatives.
Put your code where your mouth is, Free Software Foundation. And make sure it's truly open to derivative works, while you're at it.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
I read Richard Stallman's commentary on cloud computing in the UK's Guardian. Stallman is full of warnings about cloud computing:
One reason you should not use Web applications to do your computing is that you lose control. It's just as bad as using a proprietary program.
But he completely neglects to mention that he had a chance to seed the cloud, which is largely built using open-source software, with an upgraded GNU General Public License (Version 3), and he demurred. Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation failed to protect the cloud when they had the chance, finally capitulating to industry pressure with the Affero GPL, an inelegant but workable sop.
Ars Technica is right to suggest that Stallman's doom-and-gloom about cloud computing is "myopic" and utters a final judgment well before even a provisional judgment is warranted.
But Stallman's biggest fault here is that he criticizes a problem that his own inaction created.
A friend pointed out to me that the Free Software Foundation's "Practical Guide to GPL Compliance" has some intriguing details. One, in particular, caught his eye.
Most people familiar with open source understand that distribution of modified open-source software compels the modifying party to make source code available for the derivative work. However, as the Free Software Foundation points out, there is no obligation to make it easy to compile source code:
The GPL contains no provision that requires distribution of the compiler used to build the software. While companies are encouraged to make it as easy as possible for their users to build the sources, inclusion of the compiler itself is not normally considered mandatory. The Corresponding Source definition--both in GPLv2 and GPLv3--has not been typically read to include the compiler itself, but rather things like makefiles, build scripts, and packaging scripts.
In other words, source code must be available, but the onus isn't necessarily on the code author to pave the way to a perfect binary. I personally believe that it's in the developer's interest to make it as easy as possible to compile as the benefits of open source start the moment the receiving party can contribute and participate in the code, but it's not a requirement.
One other thing that caught my eye was the Free Software Foundation's clarification as to whom a code author must distribute her source code:
... Read moreAt OSCON this year, MySQL's Brian Aker made this bold statement:
Microsoft is irrelevant....We're more worried about Apple.
Perhaps he was taking a cue from MySQL's Zack Urlocker, who has been buying Macs for family members, but I understand the sentiment. Microsoft still dominates the desktop, but the momentum is Apple's.
Perhaps this is why the Free Software Foundation, which wants to protect everyone's freedom (except, oddly, on the web), has gone on another Quixotic campaign to save the world from Apple's DRM (Digital Rights Management) by clogging its Genius Bars with freedom-loving developers asking questions about freedom and then logging Apple's non-free responses.
Here's how it works:
... Read more
Neo Freerunner
I love the Free Software Foundation. I give it credit for coming up with the world's best open-source license (GNU General Public License) and for holding the line on software freedom when many, including myself, stray at times. We need someone reminding us that freedom matters.
It may not always matter, however, in the way the FSF declares. Or, rather, the FSF should probably come up with a better alternative to proprietary software before putting up a sickly contender, as it has in a recent post castigating the iPhone for its use of DRM and other proprietary technology.
In place of the iPhone the FSF holds up one of the ugliest phones I've ever seen, with a UI that only a mother could love:
The iPhone is an attack on very old and fundamental values -- the value of people having control over their stuff rather than their stuff having control over them, the right to freely communicate and share with others, and the importance of privacy.... [OK, point well taken.]
The iPhone...is also a tracking device, and like other proprietary GPS-enabled phones, can transmit your location without your knowledge.... [Er, yes. That's what I'm hoping, actually.] Of all the technology people use that could be turned against them, this is one of the most frightening possibilities....[Growing increasingly paranoid, aren't we?]
... Read more
Microsoft may wish that it were above the law, but the Free Software Foundation has issued a press release calling Microsoft to repentance for its efforts to deny GPLv3's hold on it.
We do not...agree with Microsoft's characterization of the situation involving GPLv3. Microsoft cannot by any act of anticipatory repudiation divest itself of its obligation to respect others' copyrights. If Microsoft distributes our works licensed under GPLv3, or pays others to distribute them on its behalf, it is bound to do so under the terms of that license. It may not do so under any other terms; it cannot declare itself exempt from the requirements of GPLv3.
... Read more
Palamida has been tracking the movement of open-source projects from GPLv2 to GPLv3 and estimates that 119 projects have converted (to GPL/LGPLv3), which represents less than 1 percent of projects using the General Public License, or GPL. Nothing to write home about, in other words.
Why is the uptake so tepid? Well, the rampant FUD around version 3 probably helped, but I don't think that's the main issue. I actually think the primary problem is that GPLv3 didn't go far enough, in many ways. It's an updated version of GPLv2, which is good, but it doesn't resolve some of the industry's most pressing issues, like the ASP loophole.
Instead, it tackles DRM (digital rights management), TiVo and other such issues that are salient to the Free Software Foundation but not so much to most of us.
Still, it's a good license, and I think the adoption will continue and accelerate as people grok it better. I particularly think that it will find adherents in companies and communities that have used quasi-open-source licenses. It allows for reasonable attribution, for one thing, which may serve to obviate the whole debate over Mozilla Public License (MPL) plus attribution.
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