Rant about RMS

[Vogateer]

These examples of Ximian and customizing a LAMP site are more accurately classified as selling services or making custom software than selling Free Software. We know you can make money selling support services. We know you can make money making custom software. Still, it seems nobody is selling free software in these cases, they are selling a service of setting up a drupal site or something along those lines. That might fall into the custom software category, but they are still not selling Free Software. I believe Linspire still sells proprietary software on top of their GPL software they support, and they also sell services in the way of being able to buy other proprietary software at a discount. I still don't see any of these qualifying as selling Free Software.

But the point that RMS was making was that selling custom software to a company, provided you pass on the four freedoms to that company, is selling Free software. Just because you do not apply the GPL to the software that you sell the company does not make it any less Free.

Now if you develop code and only provide the binary to the customer, that is a bad thing in RMS' eyes.

Yes, this was established. I'm not arguing that there are no cases where you can make money off of free software. What I am saying is that the limitations inherent by living according to Stallman's principles would severely limit the number of jobs available for full-time programmers, who are currently able to contribute excellent code to free software projects precisely because they can specialize in writing software for a living.

So custom software is a special case where you can make money with the four freedoms intact because that software is not distributed. We should then recognize that this custom free software would practically never be shared with others. After all, who's going to pay to have software written for their company only to give it away to their competitors, who are most likely the only people who would be interested in it? The distributed development model of the open source world, which is credited for producing the quality software we're accustomed to, really has no place in this specialized software domain. Not to mention that most of us here aren't terribly interested in free software that we'll never have any use for, and even if we did have use for it, it wouldn't matter because the company would simply keep it under wraps and we'd never even know about it.

The relationship between programmers and the programs they write also changes with this scenario. With custom software, the businesses demand a certain program, and then programmer supplies it, which creates very different software than when a programmer has a brilliant idea and supplies the program first, which then creates the demand for that software. Creativity and brilliant ideas for new software that consumers can use isn't particularly interesting to businesses unless they can sell it. You can't effectively sell GPL'd software to customers, so who cares if some guy has the idea for the next killer app? What good does that do the company who only wants custom software? They just want the software that helps their business, since they can't sell software to others.

If you're willing to accept this, then I can understand your position. If you are trying to say that living according to these principles would not make a difference and most of the programmers out there would still be able to earn a living wage as a full time programmer, then I believe you're ignoring reality, and wishing reality to conform to your ideas instead of basing your ideas on reality.

So, with Stallman's principles in place, system administrators can make money supporting free software, and we can only think of one way for a programmer to make money off of writing free software, and that's custom software; custom software that would most likely not benefit from the open source model due to companies unwillingness to share with others.

It still seems that free software designed for public use, which is the only free software I'm interested in, cannot reasonably be released under the GPL and sold by the programmer to put food on the table. So who then produces this software without the important contributions of the community of full-time programmers out there?

I still see this scenario limiting the amount of work available for software programmers to only a few specific cases, which limits those who can work full time, which limits the time that can be spent developing free software, inhibiting it's quality and variety. So if you believe that everyone can live by Stallman's principles and not seriously limit the number of full-time programmers by only allowing them to make money programming in these limited cases, then please present such a scenario, because I still can't imagine living rigidly according to the Stallman dogma without it negatively affecting the software we all know and love.

When I think about it, Stallman's beliefs make things very easy for him. You don't have to think about the consequences of your beliefs, you just believe them and defend them voraciously. It's funny, he cares about you when you're a part of the group of "users" out there, but he doesn't care enough about you as an individual to even bother treating you with any kind of respect or kindness.

[hellonorman]

All of RMS's points are logically valid with the 4 freedoms as a premise. So the only way to debate him is to challenge the premise that the 4 freedoms are essential. Many of the questions from the tllts crew used the premise that the growth and adoption of linux was more important than software freedom. RMS was simply challenging that premise.

IMO the problem is that most people tend to agree that the 4 freedoms are a given and important. But the same people want to see linux advance more quickly. Which of course puts them in a quandry because it's become clear that the two goals are pulling opposite directions.

I think your right on the money here. It was my fault for dropping the ball on this point and not being prepared like I should have been. I think that these are very important issues to ponder, how moving further away from the 4 freedoms by integrating more restrictive or closed software will impact upon the community as a whole.

Hopefully we can look forward to future shows that discuss these issues.

By the way when i say "people" I include myself in the same quandry.

[snarkout]

What I came away from the whole experience was that I was not prepared for the interview with RMS. Coming off the the episode of LUG Radio with ESR I was very interested in discussion on how the GNU + Linux Community can hope to achieve more widespread adoption without having to sacrifice too many of the values that have brought us to the state FOSS is in right now.

As pointed out in the interview and in this thread many times, RMS is not interested in market share but in keeping with the 4 freedoms. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to then see that my line of questioning in no way fit the interview. RMS would say no way to anything that may restrict any of the 4 freedoms and declare that they have no place in the Free Software Movement.

While he may come off as cold and brash, at no point do I think RMS intended to insult anyone. When he stated I was confused, I felt he meant that my line of questioning had no place in his philosophy so why bother asking at all? If my question poses a violation to any of the 4 freedoms th what other way can he answer than pointing out my question is ethically wrong?

RMS can explain to us why he believe DRM is wrong and why the Free Software Movment strongly support the anti-tivo clause; but to debate an opposing viewpoint is going to get us no where. RMS is not going to debate the issue because according to him, there is no issue to debate. If it violates the four freedoms then it is wrong. I respect him for that and applaud that he lives his live according to the values he believes.

That's a damn fine summary of feelings, Dann. I think I feel more or less the same. He's a difficult person to have a conversation with, though - there can be no denying that - and he's not mellowing with age.

[Tsuroerusu]

But the point that RMS was making was that selling custom software to a company, provided you pass on the four freedoms to that company, is selling Free software. Just because you do not apply the GPL to the software that you sell the company does not make it any less Free.

Why does everybody associate the GPL with you having to publicize the program? That's not a requirement, you only have to give the source to the people whom you distribute the binaries to.

Let's say you need a program that does X, but there are no program available that does X, so you hire me to make a program that does X. When it's all done I give you the binary and the source under the GPL, you may choose to publicize it if you want to, if you don't want to, just keep it internal and there's no problem!

Now if you develop code and only provide the binary to the customer, that is a bad thing in RMS' eyes.

Correct.

[Vogateer]

Why does everybody associate the GPL with you having to publicize the program? That's not a requirement, you only have to give the source to the people whom you distribute the binaries to.

Because the publicized free software is the only kind we can use, and thus the only kind we really care about.

[Tsuroerusu]

Why does everybody associate the GPL with you having to publicize the program? That's not a requirement, you only have to give the source to the people whom you distribute the binaries to.

Because the publicized free software is the only kind we can use, and thus the only kind we really care about.

If that's the case, then why even ask RMS "How to make money selling free software?" ?

I think that by asking the question in such a traditional sense, you force the free software philosophy to try and work with a business model that it fundamentally is incompatible with. Of course it's weird, and may not work very well, being say Adobe trying to sell Photoshop under the GPL license, because that business model is designed for proprietary software with restrictive licenses!!
The service- and custom software models fit very smoothly with free software, those are the kinds of answers you could give someone asking you "How do I as a programmer make money writing free software?"

Yesterday I asked Pat, if a 3rd party firm creates a custom application for someone, they typically do not get the source code, so number one they're locked to that 3rd party firm. If the 3rd party firm goes out of business, the business that had the custom application made for their usage, are screwed very far up the ass, because they have no way to maintain their application, they can't even hire about party to maintain it for them.
I think herein lies a good model for use of the GPL, businesses might be scared by the GPL because of Microsoft's FUD, but just point out to them what it exactly says and what benefits they get. For example, with the freedom to always get the source code, they never risk vendor lock-in, they are ensured a way of maintenance, and thereby in theory also better quality of the resulting application they get, because they have the freedom to just go somewhere else so the original guy making the software under the GPL HAS to provide good service, quality for the customer to stay.

I don't know if this would work out in real life because of all the M$ FUD about the GPL, but hey, if IBM can accept the GPL, why can't a smaller company of 50 - 200 employees?

[Vogateer]

If that's the case, then why even ask RMS "How to make money selling free software?" ?

Because everyone here likes free software, and some would like to write free software for a job and make enough money to pay for the mortgage.

I think that by asking the question in such a traditional sense, you force the free software philosophy to try and work with a business model that it fundamentally is incompatible with. Of course it's weird, and may not work very well, being say Adobe trying to sell Photoshop under the GPL license, because that business model is designed for proprietary software with restrictive licenses!!

No. Nobody is trying to force the free software people to do anything, they're just asking how most programmers can live according to these ideals and not starve. Let's face it, it is terribly easy for people in the FSF to point out their principles and not bother with the consequences, but how is this of any consolation to the programmer who wants to earn a living? A programmer with a spouse and kids isn't likely to go out on a limb and risk getting his family kicked out of their house simply because he would prefer to write free software. I think it's silly to expect everyone who recognizes that these ideals would adversely affect programmers and open source software if they were rigidly followed to simply ignore these ramifications and not ask questions about it.

The service- and custom software models fit very smoothly with free software, those are the kinds of answers you could give someone asking you "How do I as a programmer make money writing free software?"

Yes, you can support your free software for people, and the support model seems to be the main way to make money off of open source, but very few non-business people buy support, and only businesses seem to do so in any meaningful numbers, which once again brings us to the issue of making any sort of interesting software that doesn't cater to corporations. Not to mention there's little need to write applications when you can simply support others' applications and avoid the cost of development.

Yesterday I asked Pat, if a 3rd party firm creates a custom application for someone, they typically do not get the source code, so number one they're locked to that 3rd party firm. If the 3rd party firm goes out of business, the business that had the custom application made for their usage, are screwed very far up the ass, because they have no way to maintain their application, they can't even hire about party to maintain it for them.
I think herein lies a good model for use of the GPL, businesses might be scared by the GPL because of Microsoft's FUD, but just point out to them what it exactly says and what benefits they get. For example, with the freedom to always get the source code, they never risk vendor lock-in, they are ensured a way of maintenance, and thereby in theory also better quality of the resulting application they get, because they have the freedom to just go somewhere else so the original guy making the software under the GPL HAS to provide good service, quality for the customer to stay.

I don't know if this would work out in real life because of all the M$ FUD about the GPL, but hey, if IBM can accept the GPL, why can't a smaller company of 50 - 200 employees?

Of course it makes better business sense to use open source software to avoid vendor lock-in, but we're talking about how programmers are supposed to make a living writing free software. It seems that the support model doesn't seem to support near as many programmers as system administrators. As far as I know IBM doesn't really make money selling free software, so they're hardly relevant to that problem. Without programmers writing free software, the rest really doesn't matter.

[Tsuroerusu]

If that's the case, then why even ask RMS "How to make money selling free software?" ?

Because everyone here likes free software, and some would like to write free software for a job and make enough money to pay for the mortgage.

Fair enough.

I think that by asking the question in such a traditional sense, you force the free software philosophy to try and work with a business model that it fundamentally is incompatible with. Of course it's weird, and may not work very well, being say Adobe trying to sell Photoshop under the GPL license, because that business model is designed for proprietary software with restrictive licenses!!

No. Nobody is trying to force the free software people to do anything, they're just asking how most programmers can live according to these ideals and not starve. Let's face it, it is terribly easy for people in the FSF to point out their principles and not bother with the consequences, but how is this of any consolation to the programmer who wants to earn a living? A programmer with a spouse and kids isn't likely to go out on a limb and risk getting his family kicked out of their house simply because he would prefer to write free software. I think it's silly to expect everyone who recognizes that these ideals would adversely affect programmers and open source software if they were rigidly followed to simply ignore these ramifications and not ask questions about it.

Now I'd like to use an RMS sentence "You are not understanding what I just said"!!
I did not say force the free software guys to do something, go back and read my reply again. I said force "free software" into a place that IT does not fit into. Because I agree, trying to sell the Gimp in the same way that Adobe sells Photoshop is not going to earn you a lot of cash (Especially with the interface of the Gimp).
And no I do not agree with having your kids starve because of stuff like ideals in computing, nor do I agree that they should starve being you will allow them to eat certain things (If pork was the only thing available, would a lot of muslim kids starve? Yes, but of bastard fundamentalists like Bin Laden, however I am in no way calling RMS a fundamentalist or zealot of any kind because I don't see him as that).

The service- and custom software models fit very smoothly with free software, those are the kinds of answers you could give someone asking you "How do I as a programmer make money writing free software?"

Yes, you can support your free software for people, and the support model seems to be the main way to make money off of open source, but very few non-business people buy support, and only businesses seem to do so in any meaningful numbers, which once again brings us to the issue of making any sort of interesting software that doesn't cater to corporations. Not to mention there's little need to write applications when you can simply support others' applications and avoid the cost of development.

Well, if support is not a good fit for you, do custom software for people using free software licenses, that gives them advantages in the form of no vendor lock-in, more freedom, and you can keep to your ideals. Personally I think that locking your customers maintainability to your survival as a company is betraying them.

Yesterday I asked Pat, if a 3rd party firm creates a custom application for someone, they typically do not get the source code, so number one they're locked to that 3rd party firm. If the 3rd party firm goes out of business, the business that had the custom application made for their usage, are screwed very far up the ass, because they have no way to maintain their application, they can't even hire about party to maintain it for them.
I think herein lies a good model for use of the GPL, businesses might be scared by the GPL because of Microsoft's FUD, but just point out to them what it exactly says and what benefits they get. For example, with the freedom to always get the source code, they never risk vendor lock-in, they are ensured a way of maintenance, and thereby in theory also better quality of the resulting application they get, because they have the freedom to just go somewhere else so the original guy making the software under the GPL HAS to provide good service, quality for the customer to stay.

I don't know if this would work out in real life because of all the M$ FUD about the GPL, but hey, if IBM can accept the GPL, why can't a smaller company of 50 - 200 employees?

Of course it makes better business sense to use open source software to avoid vendor lock-in, but we're talking about how programmers are supposed to make a living writing free software. It seems that the support model doesn't seem to support near as many programmers as system administrators. As far as I know IBM doesn't really make money selling free software, so they're hardly relevant to that problem. Without programmers writing free software, the rest really doesn't matter.

IBM sells services, they don't sell free software. Xandros and Linspire sell distributions and services and now Linspire is really more of service because of that Freespire thing they do. Red Hat sells support, services, training, certification and all that for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, they also do "patent and IP indemnification" as they call it.

[CptnObvious999]

But the point that RMS was making was that selling custom software to a company, provided you pass on the four freedoms to that company, is selling Free software. Just because you do not apply the GPL to the software that you sell the company does not make it any less Free.

Why does everybody associate the GPL with you having to publicize the program? That's not a requirement, you only have to give the source to the people whom you distribute the binaries to.

Let's say you need a program that does X, but there are no program available that does X, so you hire me to make a program that does X. When it's all done I give you the binary and the source under the GPL, you may choose to publicize it if you want to, if you don't want to, just keep it internal and there's no problem!

But in accordance to the GPL you have to allow them to copy and share it as they want, correct? If this is the case then they will just publish it instead of you publishing it and everyone will get it for free from them. For custom software it might work but that might be done inside the company anyways (which is the case for the company I work with). but what I am thinking about is commercial software, like dreamweaver, photoshop, and Warcraft. For them it would be hard to make money if it were under the GPL.

[TankCatNinjaFish]

The problem is developing emotional attachment to software. RMS essentially gave his life to free software. He has no wife or kids, FSF and GNU is all he's got. W/o him none of this would exist. For the rest of us, Linux and the entire F/OSS movement is simply an exploitable resource. 98% of Linux users don't care about the end user freedoms. Thats why users don't think twice about installing stuff like skype, flash, prop. nvidia drivers. Thats why Linux will look more and more like Mac OS X in coming years, in terms of the amount of propietary software in the distros.

And you can't make money selling free software. Free software at most is a means to commoditize the platform so that companies can sell proprietary software and hardware. In RMS's view, programmers are supposed to just barely make a living. You cannot be an free software ISV like that.

[Vogateer]

I don't know about anyone else, but I enjoyed this thread. Even if nobody cared for my posts, just writing them clarified my thoughts on these matters. I've figured that I'm probably more in the open source camp than I am in the free software camp, even though I think free software is fantastic and I'd like to contribute more than just a little bit of money to free software some day.

I shouldn't continue the debate, but I will say to Troels that I don't think I misunderstood the meaning when you said the question was forcing them to work with a business model that's incompatible with it. I believe you meant that the question was shoehorning GPL software into the same business model as proprietary software such as the kind Adobe makes. I don't believe any of the questions did that at all. I believe the questions asked about what sort of business model would work with GPL software, though implicit in that question is the insinuated preference that this business model not force so many programmers to find non-programming work to sustain themselves. I didn't notice someone trying to force them to into the proprietary software business model at all. Isn't that what you meant?

[CptnObvious999]

The problem is developing emotional attachment to software. RMS essentially gave his life to free software. He has no wife or kids, FSF and GNU is all he's got. W/o him none of this would exist. For the rest of us, Linux and the entire F/OSS movement is simply an exploitable resource. 98% of Linux users don't care about the end user freedoms. Thats why users don't think twice about installing stuff like skype, flash, prop. nvidia drivers. Thats why Linux will look more and more like Mac OS X in coming years, in terms of the amount of propietary software in the distros.

I believe Linux is better than anything else for technical and ethical reasons. But I don't think everyone should have to use it just because of the ethical reasons, that would only get you .01% of the market. Whether you run Linux just because of the ethics or because it is better, to me you are helping the community out anyways which is why I think it is stupid how RMS condemns people just because they want something that works. If you run Linux I respect you for that and I think he should too.

[Tsuroerusu]

But in accordance to the GPL you have to allow them to copy and share it as they want, correct? If this is the case then they will just publish it instead of you publishing it and everyone will get it for free from them.

Well, I don't think most USERS of custom software will go through all the hastle of making source available and stuff, I think they are most likely to keep the program internal, that way they do not have to give it to anybody. Another benefit they get from the GPL, in my opinion, is that IF they go to another firm to get some changes made (Maybe the first firm had bad service), that new firm can't close the source on them either, the vendor lock-in is never biting them, once they have their original program under the GPL. When our company provides the new "custom software firm" (CSF) with the source code for the program that they want changes made to, sure the new CSF could publish the program, but then THEY would have to ensure that sources were available and host servers for it and all that stuff. I just don't see people doing that, because it's the distributor that has to provide source, NOT the copyright holder, and for a CSF to host servers and pay for bandwidth to make sources available is not very feasible. In this case, the copyright holder is the customer "our company".
So let's say the new CSF has finished the new changes, and the customer "our company" are happy, since they provided the CSF with source under the GPL, and the CSF changed the GPL source, "our company" has to get the full changed source code back which an in-house IT guy could compile and set up if the CSF were not willing to do that for them, if it had to be compiled, which a PHP-based CMS-style thingy doesn't.

For custom software it might work but that might be done inside the company anyways (which is the case for the company I work with).

Yeah well, I've seen tons of companies making "Customized Solutions for Customers", I have yet to see one saying that they work under the GPL to ensure the customers freedom, not risking vendor lock-in, ensure maintainability in the future etc. etc. I just think the benefits of this would be quite huge, look at my old school for example, they used some crappy library software (Because they have a little in-school library) until our local government provided something new for all the schools, which also was a buggy piece of clumsy code.

but what I am thinking about is commercial software, like dreamweaver, photoshop, and Warcraft. For them it would be hard to make money if it were under the GPL.

Well I am not talking about commercial proprietary software at all, I am talking about making money doing free software. Free software does just not fit into the traditional business model of proprietary software, because of the reasons Vogateer has outlined earlier in this thread.

[CptnObvious999]

but what I am thinking about is commercial software, like dreamweaver, photoshop, and Warcraft. For them it would be hard to make money if it were under the GPL.

Well I am not talking about commercial proprietary software at all, I am talking about making money doing free software. Free software does just not fit into the traditional business model of proprietary software, because of the reasons Vogateer has outlined earlier in this thread.

Exactly, that's why I disagree with RMS.

[hellonorman]

Isn't the crux of all this that a digital product doesn't fit the traditional business model? There is no room in the traditional business model for a consumer who can replicate a product basically an inifinite number of times and for so little a cost. All of this DRM, patent, and copyright stuff is an attempt by big business to hold onto the traditional business model in a digital world. Yet the community rails against it demanding that these companies adapt and change instead of implementing draconian measures. It doesn't seem consistent to then not expect programmers to adapt as well.