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Re: [Fsuk-manchester] RMS on Swedish Pirate Party vs Free Software


From: Pater Mann
Subject: Re: [Fsuk-manchester] RMS on Swedish Pirate Party vs Free Software
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 00:02:34 +0100

John Hughes wrote:
> No one is forcing you to give software away.

The original post that I was replying to was discussing making the
copyright period on software really short so that all software would
have to be released to the public very quickly. I call that forcing me
to give my software away.

> Free software is not equivalent to software available for zero cost
> (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html).

Although this is fine in theory, in practice the two go hand in hand.
Even if you cannot build the software yourself, there is always
someone willing to do so (often the authors themselves) so free (as in
freedom) software is almost always available for free (as in beer). I
have worked for several companies who use free software and I don't
think any of them have paid for the software in any way (either for
the software itself, for installation or for support). They just
download the software from the 'Net and use it. It is only the larger
free software projects that stand any real chance of making money from
support and services and the more widely used often end up with a
corporate sponsor anyway. The smaller projects often have to rely on
donations which few people seem willing to give.

> Secondly, Free software licenses only kick in when
> you choose to distribute the software.

That is an interesting point and is one of the reasons behind the new
licence from the FSF (AGPL: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html). As
Software as a Service (SaaS) becomes more prevalent, the GPL no longer
protects the freedom of the code because the software is not
distributed and so the AGPL has been created to ensure that even
server code is released.

> By suggesting that software should be proprietary, ...

I did not suggest anything of the sort! I was specifically referring
to the opposite assertion that all software should be free. I am a
great supporter of free software and would never deny its right to
exist. All I was saying was that proprietary software also has a right
to exist and that the people that develop software (whether
individuals or companies) should be allowed to choose whether it is
open or closed, free or proprietary, and not have that decision forced
upon them.

> you're not saying that developers should get paid for
> their work, but that the owners of the software (usually the company,
> not the developers) should be able to make money out of the software
> virtually forever without any further investment and by taking control
> of the users through creating a dependency on them for modifications
> and enhancements.  Microsoft are an obvious example; the actual cost
> of the development work for a product like Microsoft Office will pale
> in comparison to how much they have received back by charging hundreds
> of pounds per copy and maintaining monopolistic control over the
> product.

You are not forced to use MS Office. Despite Microsoft's best efforts,
although it has  a large majority of the market, MS Office does not
have a monopoly. (WordPerfect is, or used to be, widely used in the
legal profession because there were many specialist macros available.)
I have no love for Microsoft - their goal seems to be to eliminate all
other software providers in order to be the only software provider on
the planet - but there are alternatives. There are several very good
FOSS office products (OpenOffice.org for one) as well as other
commercial offerings. If people choose to pay hundreds of pounds for
MS Office, that is their decision - they should not complain about it.
(Old joke: Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I do this. Well don't do it
then! [grin]) If people did not buy MS Office, its price would very
quickly drop and, if it still didn't sell, Microsoft would take it off
the market as they have already done for quite a few software
products.

> Developing proprietary software is a small-minded take on things.  The
> software is developed to make the company money and for that reason
> alone.

That is an extremely harsh view! Yes, businesses are about making
money (they do not stay in business long if they don't!) but that is
not the sole reason for their existence. There are some companies who
seem to get things the wrong way round (create a product/service and
then persuade people that they need it - the fashion industry are
masters at that), but normally business is about identifying a need
and then fulfilling that need. You need to make money in order to do
that but it is also about giving people what they want and there is a
great deal of satisfaction to be obtained from doing so. Also, it is a
sad fact that companies cannot stay static - they either grow or die -
but they cannot grow if they do not make more money than it costs to
run the business.

> Progress at large is being stalled by the desire to make money.

Wow - that is another very sweeping statement, even if you are talking
specifically about software! There is vastly more free (and open
source) software than there has ever been (look at SourceForge alone)
so by your argument, progress should be accelerating, not stalled.
Also, as I said above, businesses have to keep innovating and
expanding their range to stay ahead of the competition. It is only
when there is no competition that progress stalls because there is no
longer any reason develop the product further.

> There is a big difference
> between making sufficient money to live comfortably and making
> ridiculous amounts by monopolising and controlling users.

Are you talking about individuals or companies here? It may be ok for
individuals to make "sufficient money to live comfortably" but, as I
have already explained, businesses must do more than that.

> Pegasus could be a much more well-developed application by now
> if its development hadn't been arbitrarily limited

I will give you credit for saying "could be" rather than "would be"
but, even so, Pegasus may not have been any different if it had been
free or open-source software. Firstly, just because the source is
available does not mean that anyone else will work on it and,
secondly, even if they did, changes to the core software may have been
so tightly controlled by the oriignal author that the software would
be exactly the same as it is now. Yes, it could be forked if the
source is available but, unless it was either so good that nothing
else came close or it was something totally unique with no
competitors, most people would just move on to something else. Also,
forking a project is a big undertaking. Linus Torvaulds still holds a
vice-like grip on the Linux kernel and there have been several
complaints from other kernel developers about that but you don't see
many forks because maintaining a fork is such a large amount of work,
often for little or no real gain.

> Remember: only proprietary software dies.

It depends what you mean by "dies" but there are hundreds (possibly
thousands) of dead and/or undeveloped projects on SourceForge alone. I
have searched SF for software many times and often the majority of the
projects that come up have not changed for several years. So, although
in theory these projects could be revived because the source is
available, in practice it rarely happens.

patermann




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