what would open source be like, if it cared about freedom?

"the Open Source Initiative is a total joke,"

yeah, but its a pretty good joke. i mean its one of those jokes that takes sociopathic proportions and goes on for decades, im not stressing that its funny, but its got one heck of a setup and punchline, that joke.

"Secondly there is no evidence that from a Practical veiw that free software works better than proprietary software yet that is exactly what the OSI claims."

i dont know, i read mako hills article on "when free software isnt better" when it came out, and i think hes got a great point there, but i do think free software quite often does work better than proprietary software. video acceleration in drivers though... mmm. we know why (because the hardware drivers are closely guarded by the companies who dont want to reveal too much about their designs-- or something) but since im not a gamer or video editor or running a high-performance home theatre im happy with my free drivers.

i guess youre not wrong, per se.

"Third the term open source is absoulutly meaningless there is the IKEA "open source" sofa nonsense that was in the news
https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/ikea-open-source/"

nice! and scandinavian, like the kernel!

"github is littered with projects that have no license"

that sucks.

"this link from marklogic software is a propritary software provider but use similar arguments as the FSF"

weird!

_

what i was really getting at before was, i am interested in pulling more people from "open source" towards free software. open source takes free software and neglects freedom (and smears free software advocacy, and cozies up to monopolies and then spits on free software even more. its a pretty sickening display actually, which routinely claims to be more "reasonable" simply for standing up less-- or pretending to stand for anything at all.)

im not concerned that free software is in any way "unfair" to open source-- im probably more vocally against open source than most free software advocates are. but because of that, i feel its important to say that open source does have a lot of well meaning (frankly, duped) advocates in it.

while open source tries to persuade people to avoid the subject of freedom and does grow, free software grows just by continuing to stand for what it stands for. and this is admirable and shows integrity.

there are a few avenues where i wish it was possible to persuade people (on their side) to consider freedom more often. obviously that wont happen at the top, where its very deliberate and cynical-- but i would say that most of its advocates really believe theyre doing something good, and thats what id like to tap into better.

the open source method of doing this is "dont mention freedom!" (someone might take it the wrong way!) and that of course is an absurdity-- the absurd foundation of open source itself.

i would try to find constructive ways to resolve "grey area compliance" with the gpl (which makes up the vast majority of gpl software distribution and isnt getting any smaller) and that goal alone deserves its own thread, but too late now...

as well as creating that bridge so that well-intended open source advocates can question the rhetoric (and nonsense) of open source more.

in other words-- some of them want to do good, and have reasons to think theyre doing good, but its peppered with special pleading and kind of rewrites of history and being duped into co-opting an actual movement.

open source may not (?) have started as astroturf, but it has grown into a full-fledged astroturf movement.

as open source steps up its "open sourcey" war of attrition on software freedom, maybe there are ways we can step up what we do-- definitely better not to stoop to their level (every time we become them, they win) but we are hackers (as in clever playfulness and fun twists on ideas that improve the integrity of being with little regard for the status quo-- thats no small thing!) and like wang chung, "the words we use are strong-- they make reality."

i mean thats what programming is-- you bring things things into existence, using only words and numbers. but our words are designed to free people and their words are designed to hold people back.

together their words outnumber ours, and still here we stand, loud and clear. but their numbers dont attract me-- the opportunity to get more of them to join us does.

i have other thoughts besides addressing grey area compliance, but thats a huge one. think about all the grey area compliance out there-- im not even referring to the worst commercial non-compliance. the sfc and sflc have that under control, i really have no suggestions for how they should do what they do.

the stuff they dont want to go after, and wouldnt bother going after-- thats where it would be nice if we could win a greater percentage of them over. not all of them most likely, just a lot more of them. theres got to be a way, and it would strengthen free software like never before. imagine if we tilted the balance the other way, and grey area compliance (as well as distros with non-free parts in the kernel) became the exception rather than freedom being the exception.

thats a lot closer to the #1 goal of free software, which is to be in a world where all software is free. to be certain, we will get to that goal only when enough people really want that freedom. thats all im talking about, but i do think there are things we can do with software (and advocacy) to get closer. think bigger, its a good place to visit. small goals are how we get there, but if we think bigger i almost guarantee we will think of a lot more small goals to get us there. not just things that take up more time, but ways to work "smarter, not harder."

http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2500/fc02419.htm

http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2500/fc02420.htm

i intend to talk about how to do that more in the future, whether here or elsewhere. but i hope you will think about it, too. because you dont have to do it my way-- think about your own ways of doing that, and i will try to contribute ways to accomplish these goals as well-- so im not just asking everyone to do it for me. its an invitation to either my ideas or your own new ideas on how to advance software freedom--

at least im very excited about things like peertube and any other new thing that accomplishes something ive hoped we would manage for several years running. its not much to do with what im talking about here, except to say we still have new wins and each one is exciting. as much as i like youtube, i hate it a lot more and i hate google too. despite what torvalds ridiculously says, this isnt about "hate" as much as its about humanity-- i am thrilled to say that if google closed youtube tomorrow, we would be okay!

but open source is still a problem we can address more directly, even if we kill them with kindness (and not with self-censorship or watering down, as they have always suggested we do.) i dont recommend doing it carelessly or without caution-- i just recommend doing it.

(this post is dedicated to the public domain.)

"when it comes to software there is nothing morally wrong with people running or making proprietary software"

actually i like stallmans stance that its unethical to create proprietary software. people stress that "you should be able to create whatever you want" but thats not the point. the point is that its unethical to forbid people to make things based from it. so "i should be able to make non-free software" means nothing other than "i should be able to forbid people basic rights."

and since copyright didnt always apply to software (when did that change? 1976 turned copyright completely upside down making it the rule instead of the exception but thats just a guess) its basically the point where it turned into a free speech right (which i believe fair use was created to address, but it doesnt do it adequately.)

"but those vendors should not expect that we will somehow trust them be cause that is exacly one one the main problems with proprietary software is for all we know that software may do a malicious function proprietary software has been caught with malicious functions before such as angry birds leaking if you are gay straght transgender and the apple watch not having the rainbow flag in russia due to russias anti lgbt laws"

yeah i mean anytime someone makes proprietary software it has major costs (to freedom) like that. people dont always think of it that way, for one because you dont know about the features that no one can freely add.

> when it comes to software there is nothing morally wrong with people running or making proprietary software

I agree that there is nothing morally wrong with running proprietary software. The user is the victim, not the perpetrator.

However, creating and distributing proprietary software is morally wrong in my opinion, as it gives the developer unjust power over the user.