About the license issues and the link [was: freeing ungoogled-chromium [was: "The Python Trap"]]
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It seems for me that the license issues is one of the things which I have to put priority to understand issues better now. (if it is worth for someone to be solved)
To clear my vague understanding, I would appreciate it if you could tell me your knowledge about it.
question1: As an user writes here,
https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/756
Is there a possibility or an actual case example which a FOSS developper was sued for using/modifying/distributing a propriatery code?
Since even the chief developper of uncloudium (already?)doesn't seem to care about it very much, so I think that that would be so-called grey zones, though.
question2: Why "A per-distro basis doesn't protect you or the project legally." and if the developper does it as a whole basis, why it would protect him and the project legally?
question3: From the link,
https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/freetardism.html
May I ask you your opinions about this writing?
Would you have convincing counter-arguments? or is it a matter which should be refined on?
Let's just say that I basically don't like the words -ism or -ist very much but his writing seems to be convincing. I want to invite the writer to here to discuss. Thanks.
In the article freetardism, I think he didn't get the point of Free Software and how you apply it.
He is comparing Apples with Pineapples, both are fruits, but both are totally different kind of fruit, one you can wash and eat it, the other one you need to cut it first then eat, there are tons of examples, but you get the point. :P
And most of the articles are complaining about Mozilla's misbehavior against it's contributors and praising non-free software over anything Mozilla or GPL related.
I agree with CalmStorm, you need to be cautious when supporting (not only free software) but anything.
> question3: From the link,
> https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/freetardism.html
> May I ask you your opinions about this writing?
Classic internet troll. Highly inflammatory language, uses selectively edited information to argue against. Similar to the 4chan trolls who try to stir up racist anger or homophobic anger.
> If a browser is being kept maintained as possible as secure, and as possible as editable (I understand the word software freedom as the freedom of editing. Please correct me if wrong) by developpers's strong passion and carefulness or stuff like that, I woundn't care very much even if the source codes of the browser have not been opened to the public.
This is the authoritarian bargain: "Give me control, and I will give you safety." It's an old story, end it ends with you either swallowed or spat back out.
Do you trust blindly an application which Mr. Stallman made? Not to trust blindly would mean understanding all of the source codes of the application. I am not sure what that swallowed and spat back out means though, I found an article about a diver who was swallowed and spat out by a whale.
Freedoms 2 and 3 gives us collective control over the software. Nobody can individually study the source code of all programs she runs: a life time is not enough, nowadays.
Thank you for the clue. I might study about it when I have time.
Have you read Richard Stallman's book? A lot of your questions are answered in it: https://www.gnu.org/doc/fsfs3-hardcover.pdf
Also, I found the biography of Stallman to be very enlightening, although Stallman did have some disagreements with the author: https://sagitter.fedorapeople.org/faif-2.0.pdf
Software freedom is an interesting movement where it is really a big help to understand the life and the thinking of Stallman to help understand the philosophy. Stallman's own early life is so tightly intertwined with the birth of the free software movement that his own life's story is very instructive.
Why would one of the world's brightest computer hackers turn down untold millions as a career proprietary software programmer, and instead build an entire free software system from scratch? And then spend the remainder of his life promoting it - with very little financial benefit? He had the programming skills and the genius to be a Bill Gates-type mega-billionaire. When you understand the reasons why Stallman turned down a career of untold wealth, you begin to understand the reasons why the free software movement exists in the way that it does.
Yes I am interested in his books but I have not read them. Do they have translation? It would take several months to read one book, then I am not sure I should put priority on it now.
I think he is trustworthy. Perhaps good man.
But I am not his friend. I wish if I could trust him 100%, I would be relieved of those troublesome cares of things like which hardware I should choose? or which browser? etc. Or can I trust him 100% with you guys's credit as a guarantee? At least now, it seems to be a bit difficult.
Of course as far as I know, his achievement cannot compare with far Mr. Snowden's one.
Before I might read them, would you tell me a few thing about the movement?
1、What is the primary purpose of the free software movement?
2、Can you trust his recommendations without your own research?
Is there his book which like "How to construct the as possible as free/secure laptops with Trisquel 2019"?
If there is, probably I read it soon in English. I don't mind paying $10. Even if it was 20$, I would buy it. If 30$, I would think he takes a bit too much.
Philosophy is not science. Every philosopher would agree with me or get silence within few minutes.
- To be in (individual and collective) control of the software we run;
- Blind trust is not rational (it is actually what proprietary software developers ask, when they do not allow their users to study/modify the source code) but, again, one cannot possibly study/modify by herself all the software she runs: this has to be achieved collectively.
> Yes I am interested in his books but I have not read them. Do they have translation? It would take several months to read one book, then I am not sure I should put priority on it now.
Here you go Masaru. It took me a lot of searching but I found a lengthy book chapter by Richard Stallman in Japanese in which he gives his story and the story of GNU and the free software movement: https://www.oreilly.co.jp/BOOK/osp/OpenSource_Web_Version/chapter05/chapter05.html
I highly recommend this chapter. Stallman gives the same story as in his longer books, but in a shorter version.
It is part of a larger book called "Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution", all of which was translated into Japanese: https://www.oreilly.co.jp/BOOK/osp/OpenSource_Web_Version/Web_version000106.html
Here's the table of contents: https://www.oreilly.co.jp/BOOK/osp/OpenSource_Web_Version/contents/contents.html
@Magic Banana
I still neither understand where the area which you say collective and collectively mean, nor how to control my laptop with that freedom 2 and 3 without the manual, after all was ungoogled-chromium freed? etc etc. And I was going to ask what the current problems (not individual) of the movement are because I think that you must be familiar with them, and it does not seem that those topics are being discussed actively but I changed my mind. So thank you anyway. Anyway if the more the movement will achieve the purpose widely, the more our burdens will be lighter. So good luck, really, for my sake.
@andyprough
Thank you very much. I read the chapter. I would read the rest of the book. Actually, I wanted Tagalog's one, though. But I am quite better at Japanese than English, so no problem. Anyway ok I owe the time to you, I hope I have saved or will save users time somehow.
OK I will see if I can find any of his writing translated into Tagalog if possible. Glad to help!
Yes it was interesting and no problem. I already found it. I am not still sure whether this is Tagalog or Togalog, though. Anyway I can read.
Freedom 1 is the individual freedom to study/modify the program. Only a user who can program and finds the time/motivation can exercise that freedom.
If she discovers malware, she can then be vocal about it (thanks to the freedom of expression, beyond software freedoms). That would destroy the reputation of the author of the malware. That is why those who purposefully abuse users (and do not want them to know) do proprietary software. All users of free software, not only those who study it, benefit from malware-free programs. I know of one single historical exception: the Unity desktop that was sending everything the user was typing in the dash to Canonical and Amazon. That is spyware. In that case, Canonical was not trying to hide the malware. It was trying to convince its users that it was a feature!
But that is just for malware. To be in control of the software, the users want it to do whatever they need it to do. They want more features and less bugs, including less bugs opening vulnerabilities that third parties can exploit. Again, with freedom 1, only a user who can program and finds the time/motivation can modify the program. Nevertheless, with freedom 3, she can redistribute the improved software. In this way all users benefit from her improvements. If the original developer does not approve the modification, we have a fork. The users then choose their favorite version. In a similar way as for malware (in the paragraph above), free software developers tend to take more into account their community: they do not want their program forked (and that happened quite rarely indeed). The developers who do not want to listen to their users do proprietary software, where no fork is possible. Such users are helpless.
In the two paragraphs above, I talk about a developer, coming out of nowhere and exercising freedom 1. However any group of users can contract that developer. A state agency can contract a security expert to audit critical software it relies on and correct vulnerabilities, a group of professionals can contract a developer to add a feature to a (maybe abandoned) specific free software program or even to develop such a program from scratch, etc.
Do you now better understand what the free software movement means when it says that free software is under the individual and collective control of its users?, that the movement does not only matter to those who can read/write code?
Masaru,
Unlike many previous cases this is one of the few times when you put meaningful questions. I am glad to see that.
Q1:
There are many many cases of copyright lawsuits in various areas of "intellectual property", not just software. Being in a gray area cannot protect anyone. That's why it is called gray.
Q2:
Doing something unlawful and giving it to others to make it lawful for their own case doesn't make your own action lawful.
Q3:
Freetardism seems quite a good word to illustrate limited thinking and fanaticism in regards to FOSS. There is a lot of it on these forum too. Look at the people who refer to RMS on any occasion, copy his words, his ways of linguistic expression and his actions, as if trying to be a perfect clone for the sake of having the same authority as him. This is just stupid. Just like those who think that lighting candles or repeating prayers has anything to do with the essence of religion. Copying the external form and demonstrating it for the sake of winning an argument or presenting oneself as knowledgeable is nothing but vanity. It shows inward emptiness and superficiality. An honest person needs no authority to show him what is right or wrong because he is in direct contact with truth.
Of course disassembly and reverse engineering is not equivalent to having the source code. Also it is quite obvious that FOSS does not guarantee you privacy or quality. Unfortunately due to the heavy FOSS propaganda many people seem to assume it. Although it may theoretically give better chance to avoid the bad things of closed software, it is still not a panacea because there is also GPL'ed malware, deliberately created. So you don't just need "many eyes" to look at the code. You also need the *right* eyes, minds and hands. And remember: good programmers are very busy and because they have no time to work on "free as in freedom" (which in most case also means "as in beer" too) they quite often become cynical and simply focus on improving proprietary software which brings them money.
When you look for that "perfect browser" or anything else that would respect your true freedom and privacy, you are looking for something much more than just those 4 rules defined by FSF, and surely more valuable than having a license which gives you (personally) nothing but a chance you will never use because it works only for experts (inspect the code, modify it, etc). So when you ask about that level of perfection and read that someone is concerned about the license, it is quite possible to be a case of freetardism and it will confuse you even more. There is no license or technology that guarantees right attitude, morality or ethics. It comes from people. A program can be open source without being "free to modify" and still be checked by experts who can confirm that it is not abusing you. At the same time a program with FOSS license can spy on you and the company producing it may justify it with your "freedom to modify it" or their "legitimate interest".
All that doesn't mean that using a FOSS license is futile or that perfecting that part is a sign of freetardism. Still it is only a prerequisite for the next thing (which you ask for in various ways).
> All that doesn't mean that using a FOSS license is futile or that perfecting that part is a sign of freetardism. Still it is only a prerequisite for the next thing (which you ask for in various ways).
"Prerequisite" is a good word. Software freedom is Step #0, a prerequisite, for Step #1, which is exercising that freedom. I have no objection to "X is free software, so the community is free to modify it," but then comes "Cool, so in what way shall the community modify it?" I think that Step #0 is can sometimes feel like such a struggle that it is tempting to consider the job done at that point and neglect steps #1-X. This is something I've recently been coming to terms with.
I tend to think that the possible fork is a strong-enough deterrent to have free software evolve in the interest of its users, as I tried to explain above: https://trisquel.info/forum/about-license-issues-and-link-was-freeing-ungoogled-chromium-was-python-trap#comment-141307
I see the control of the software as a direct consequence of the four freedoms, without any missing intermediary step. Don't get me wrong: I am all in favor of a democratic governance (to answer questions such as "what is the next feature to implement?"), of finding new technical ways to incentivize/organize the involvement of the users in that governance, of reaching out to get more and more diverse contributors, etc. I just do not think all that that is "essential" to achieve the goal, the control of the software we run: as long as a program is free software (the four freedoms are "essential" to the goal), its developers cannot ignore the needs of the users for too long or a fork will happen.
Even if only tarballs are distributed on a static site that gives no way to contact the developers, the fork remains "easy". In comparison, in the proprietary software realm, where only a few developers have access to the source code, a competing program has be developed from scratch (years of work), will be incompatible with whatever the original program produces (because it uses an undocumented format or even DRM), etc. That is too much: in practice, the users are helpless, controlled by the software rather than controlling the software.
>Unlike many previous cases this is one of the few times when you put meaningful questions. I am glad to see that.
What are you talking about. My questions are almost always ultra meaningful.
Anyway, most of us might have a simple thought that Stallman would have had. We are enjoying sharing our works, why do you come, get mad, love a ban, and demand money?
I don't like it.
That is simple. At least I can understand it very much.
Our enemies are living on the extremely unstable basis.
Because obviously people are requiring their privacy. If not, it is unlikely there are so many words such like "We respect your something, we don't sell your something, security, privacy" etc.
But at writing "We collect your information for...", already it is an anti-privacy policy, isn't it? The only privacy policy which should be called so is that not collecting any information. Or just reasonable minimum information.
If they write it literally anti-privacy policy honestly, I don't know how many idiots use the software. We are simply easy victims.
Anyway so their failure is a matter of time. Already Free software movement has won in the sense. The matter is hastening it, due to pollution. There is not much time for family quarrels.
We have to share the info with or educate especially college students (I am lower middle high school graduate, I am afraid) for the thing "How stupid thinking that aiming at becoming next Bill Gates or something is in next era" (even in this era, though).
Wrongdoers profit is an old story. (and they were not trusted by anyone)
I think I can prove it. I have to, but.
I feel here forum is quite more orderly than other forums but I want to listen more users's voices. If they have the simple thought. Even Cezanne succeeded in drawing a few apples with his whole life.
>Just like those who think that lighting candles or repeating prayers has anything to do with the essence of religion.
The essence of religion is that his thought, "I don't like it" and "I want to do this".
>It shows inward emptiness and superficiality. An honest person needs no authority to show him what is right or wrong because he is in direct contact with truth.
It would be a fact but I use authority many times to let great people get silence quickly and borrow words from other people many times to avoid criticizing, and since my laziness and sensitivity.
>And remember: good programmers are very busy and because they have no time to work on "free as in freedom" (which in most case also means "as in beer" too) they quite often become cynical and simply focus on improving proprietary software which brings them money.
Money talks, after all.
I was able to understand the licenses issues quite better, I think. Thanks guys.
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