Debunking A Critique of Free Software by Anonymous
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An Ultimate Hacker by the name of Troler sent me an interesting article written by some anonymous writer and published subsequently by Jake Bauer. I already debunked a few anti-free-software and anti-Stallman articles before. But most of them were from either complete imbeciles or corporate imbeciles. This time it seems like the article, which is titled "A Critique of Free Software" is written by a Free Software enthusiast. And by a person that is genuinely interested in the success of Freedom. He criticizes some aspects of the Free Software Foundation that he believes are detrimental to its stated goals. And believes that the goal is not what they tell it is.
I would love to simply debunk it stating my opinions as of why opinions in the article are false. But it's no longer interesting for me to do so that plainly. I like to be confused. And what is a better way to get confused than to advocate for a view you disagree with? I do that lately in a form of a dialogue. I let more than one character express their believes in their words. And let them yell at each other. But this time it's an article I'm trying to debunk / review.
I think I'll do thus: I will create a character representing the anonymous person who written the article in question. His name will be Mr. Stanley Doubles. Miss Sheiny Goldberg and Mr. Stanley Doubles will argue each other on the "Let's Argue" show. During which, I ( the writer ) will try as much as possible to use the quotes from the original article as dialogue used by Mr. Stanley Doubles. But I will still recommend you to go and read the article in question first. Because I will attack both Mr. Doubles and the article itself.
The rules of "Let's Argue": Two participants argue over a topic that was chosen by the audience of the show. Their primary objective is not to win their argument, but to make the other participant loose their cool. The show has sanity judges that observe thoroughly the expressions of anxiety in the participants. And they press the red button when they judge that any of the participants has lost their cool. Which in turn gives the opposite participant a point. So the idea is to speak as outrageously as possible, while not being effected by it yourself.
It was one of the early episodes of Let's Argue and thus nobody was really experienced with it yet. The participants were ( as I already mentioned ) Sheiny Goldberg and Stanley Doubles. And the question that the audience voted for was "Did Free Software Foundation Lost Their Touch With Reality?". Stanley was chosen to speak against FSF. While Sheiny was to defend it.
Mr. Doubles: Ideologically, Free Software is a bit of a jumbled mess. Look at the GNU Manifesto. Stallman declares his goal to be the prosperity and freedom of the public in general. These are, of course, loaded terms, so we must read the rest of the document to understand what he means.
Sheiny: Why are those "loaded terms"? Aren't the people deserve freedom?
Mr. Doubles: Of course people do. But exactly how does the Free Software Foundation is trying to achieve it is also important. Their ideological basis comes down to a simple concept: A developer can either deserve a reward or demand it, but not both. Which is quite absurd!
Sheiny: By the reward you mean monetarily?
Mr. Doubles: Yes. Free Software is based on the idea of donations. But if the developer wants to charge for the software itself...
Sheiny: Wait! This is not true.
Mr. Doubles: What do you mean, not true?!
One of the judges was getting close to pressing the button.
Sheiny: Free Software ideology comes down to the four essential freedoms. And the two freedoms that allow redistribution of software allow both giving away and selling of said software. Therefor the developer can demand a pay for a copy.
Mr. Doubles: Well... Yes... Technically you are right about that. But in the real world this kind of demand is not suitable for a software company. You see... If the person can get the program from somewhere else...
Sheiny: You can get almost anything from somewhere else for cheaper and if you look at the second hand market, for a lot cheaper. Why with software it should be different?
Mr. Stanley Doubles paused and tried to breath evenly. He glanced over the judges. They were looking among themselves. It didn't seem like Mr. Doubles lost his cool, but he stopped and they didn't know what to do about it. He recollected his thoughts and took out his Gnome-Phone. He accessed the GNU Manifesto and scrolled through it.
Mr. Doubles: Here's a quote from the GNU Manifesto: Complete system sources will be available to everyone. As a result, a user who needs changes in the system will always be free to make them himself, or hire any available programmer or company to make them for him. Users will no longer be at the mercy of one programmer or company which owns the sources and is in sole position to make changes. - Owns the software! So they don't like Intellectual Property, it seems. But what about Copyleft? The GNU General Public License and alike? This is a very clear use of Intellectual Property. Isn't it?
Sheiny: There is not such a thing as intellectual property.
Mr. Doubles: What?!
A judge pressed a button and a big red "1" appeared above Sheiny's head. While above Mr. Double's head there was still a "0". He looked at the number above her head. Then he looked at her. She was smiling.
Mr. Doubles: So you are saying that there is no copyright, trademark, patent...
Sheiny: No. I'm not saying that. Copyright is an actual existing law. There is no such thing as Intellectual Property. That's what I'm saying.
Mr. Doubles: I'm confused. You are trying to justify a clearly IP license with telling me that there is no IP...
Sheiny: Well. How do you define freedom?
Mr. Doubles: What is that now has to do with anything?
Sheiny: That's the goal of Free Software, isn't it?
Mr. Doubles: Freedom is when a person can do anything he likes.
Sheiny: Now imagine a practical scenario where this is true. Everyone can do what they like. And because it's a freedom and not a requirement, everybody can not do what they don't like. Okay?
Mr. Doubles: Easy. I have imagined it.
Sheiny: I'd like to kill you. But you don't want to die quite yet. This is a collision of freedoms. Isn't it? Who's freedom should go first?
Mr. Doubles: Hm...
Sheiny: This is, what programmers call, a bug. So we have to define the word a bit differently as to avoid the bug. So how about that: Freedom is the ability to control yourself and things belonging to you. This is a definition used by Stallman. Now me killing you is no longer a freedom. But an unjust power.
Mr. Doubles: Okay, then if I own a program...
Sheiny: Wait!...
The judge was ready to press a button on Sheiny.
Sheiny: Let's say I own a knife. It's a perfectly legal thing to own. And my freedom is to control it how ever I wish. Right? How about I have a knife and just so happened that I wish to control it in such a way that its blade will end up in your stomach? Well, then it's a murder. And I crossed my line from freedom to power. Therefor there is a law making it illegal for me to stab people with my knife. Even though it's my knife and I should be able to do whatever I want with it.
Mr. Doubles: Why are we talking about knives?
Sheiny: We have laws that prevent people from doing things with their property. Like with the knife example. Or for example: If you buy a piece of software. The law prevents you from doing anything you like with it. Like sharing it with another person. And this is unjust.
Mr. Doubles: Because the program is not yours.
Sheiny: If I have a receipt, it's mine.
Mr. Doubles: But the copyright owner is still...
Sheiny: Copyright holder!
Mr. Doubles: The programmer still holds the rights to it.
Sheiny: That's not respecting the owner's freedom.
Mr. Doubles: Well the owner can do anything he likes with it.
Sheiny: No he can't! The copyright law prevents him.
Mr. Doubles: Are you talking about the owner, or the user?
Sheiny: They are the same person!
Mr. Doubles: The user doesn't own the program.
Sheiny: Then what the hell did he buy!?
A button was pressed! It seems like both Mr. Stanley Doubles and Miss Sheina Goldberg both have a point. Sheiny looked at the judges and tried to collect herself. It wasn't cool for her to loose her cool.
Mr. Doubles: When a user buys the program he buys only the right to use it. Not the right to redistribute it.
Sheiny: Well then it's as if he would put the money in the toilet and flush it. Because he paid for something. And he doesn't own anything as a result. If I buy something I expect full ownership of that something. I expect freedom. And when I sell something I expect it to be no longer mine anymore.
Mr. Doubles: Okay... Say Free Software allows you to fully control it. How can you then justify restricting it by clauses present in the GPL? Why can't the user make the program proprietary if he wants to?
Sheiny: The same way as I can't stub you with the knife if I want to.
Mr. Doubles: Okay... What about this program... Let me remember. AppGet! It was something like Apt-Get, but for Windows. And Microsoft made, I believe a proprietary version of it. Or something. The developer claimed that the program was stolen from him.
Sheiny: Was it Free Software?
Stanley looked at his phone again. He found a repository for both AppGet and WinGet ( a clone from Microsoft ).
Mr. Doubles: The original was under the Apache license.
Sheiny: Not copylefted! That explains a lot.
Mr. Doubles: Funny! The Microsoft one is under the MIT license. So both of them are Free Software.
Sheiny: Hm...
Mr. Doubles: Here is what the developer of the original has to say about it - "The core mechanics, terminology, the manifest format and structure, even the package repository's folder structure, are very inspired by AppGet."
Sheiny: Okay...
Mr. Doubles: He claims that the program was stolen.
Sheiny: They used the code, on which he put a license, which allows them to use the code. Even with the copyright law there is nothing bad about it.
Mr. Doubles: He is not very happy about it.
Sheiny: Why does it matter?
Mr. Doubles: Microsoft stabbed him with a knife!
Sheiny: What they released is Free Software too.
Mr. Doubles: They took his program away from him.
Sheiny: They merely copied it. He still has the original.
Mr. Doubles: No he has not. He shut down the project entirely after Microsoft released their version. And it was directly related to them releasing their version.
Sheiny: He could have not chosen to shut down the project, though.
Mr. Doubles: They effectively did it for him, by taking a good chunk of his users.
Sheiny: He doesn't own the users. Nor does he own every copy made from his program. All he owns is his own personal copies of it. That's it. That's where his freedom ends.
Judges were anxious all this time to press the button. But it seems like there occurred a pause in the conversation which calmed the two participants down. Mr. Stanley Doubles was thinking of something to say.
Mr. Doubles: Okay, so then with the GPL... A license written by the Free Software Foundation. A license endorsed by the Free Software Foundation. A license heavily used by the Free Software Foundation... with the GPL, somehow every copy of the program belongs to the original developer who can deny certain things to other people. Isn't that a violation of the core principle itself?
Sheiny laughed.
Sheiny: You are not getting the joke of the GPL.
Mr. Doubles: The joke?
Sheiny: Yes! The joke. Well... Richard Stallman is not your typical programmer. He is a hacker. A 70s hacker. You know... before it meant breaking security.
Mr. Doubles: What are you talking about?
Sheiny: Hacking - originally meant something like - doing something in a playful cleverness. Only later people started playfully break security protocols. And then doing it not playfully too. The word "Hacker" stuck, so to speak. But Richard Stallman is the original type of a hacker. One not interested so much in your password, but interested in making something clever with what he has. You know internet was a hack?
Mr. Doubles: Internet is an invention allowing computer to exchange information.
Sheiny: Yeah, but how did it came about? Well... hackers just thought of why not connecting a computer to a normal telephone line. And so they did. And it was playful cleverness. Playful cleverness that got us the internet. Anyway... Richard knew his goals. No proprietary software. His goals were to, somehow, make it so every piece of software could be share-able and modifiable. But what tools could he cleverly use to achieve that? How about the copyright itself? Who else would think of using copyright against itself but a hacker? The GPL, the first copyleft license, therefor - was a hack. A kind of a clever joke.
Mr. Doubles: So he does believe in IP after all?
Sheiny: No. He does not. But he believes in the existence of this quite convenient law that just so happened to exist called copyright. And he made a license to do what? To cancel the copyright out. So even with that he is not agreeing very much. He is fucking with copyright. Don't you see?
Mr. Doubles: Remember every court case about the violation of the GPL. All of them boiled down to the violation of the desires of the author. So all of them use a kind of, something like, IP to gain what they want to gain.
Sheiny: Of course.
Mr. Doubles: Of course!?
The red button was finally pressed. Mr. Doubles looked at the judge who pressed it and thought to himself - "I didn't even increase my tone that much.". Judge on the other hand didn't know how to rationalize him pressing the button. But one thought occurred to him - "Sorry, you were too calm for too long." - he did not dare to say it though. Sheiny obviously smiled, since she now had 2 points, while Mr. Doubles only one.
Sheiny: There is no copyleft law. If you just put a copyleft sign on something, technically speaking you did nothing. In order for copyleft to work in court, you have to use the same route copyright holders use. As in, you have to state why you have the right to demand people to release the software a certain way.
Mr. Doubles: So the FSF sees copyright as good only when it's convenient for them?
Sheiny: You know human rights? Free Speech? Privacy... We believe that there is another human right called the right for Free Software. A software that the user can fully control. Control in terms of what it does. Take for example Oscar Schindler.
Mr. Doubles: What?
Sheiny: Yes. Nazis were violating human rights left and right. And you could not just appeal to law to fight Nazis, since they controlled the law. So Oscar Schindler fought the mayhem by pretending to take advantage of the Jewish people. Here, technically, he seemed to embrace the Nazism. But in the reality, his goal was the opposite of it. With copyleft it seems like we embrace copyright, but the goal is the opposite of it. We are trying to reduce it so much, that the only thing left is inability for anyone to violate the human right that we believe in. Unless of course a reform would be made and copyright will seize to exist. And perhaps something like a copyleft law will be established instead. That's when there will be no need to use copyright, or in this case the GPL, any longer.
Mr. Doubles thought about it.
Mr. Doubles: Okay. But how about the FSF actual achievements?
The host came over to the participants. He was silently observing the conversation thus far from a far. There was a change in the program that he had to announce.
Host: Mr. Stanley Doubles, Miss Sheina Goldberg, I have to apologize. There is a rule of the game that we have to follow at this point of the conversation. You have to flip sides! Now Mr. Doubles will talk for the FSF and Miss Goldberg against the FSF.
Both participants were slightly confused by that turn of events. But Sheiny understood the shock value in such a move by the producers. Stanley Doubles though didn't like it. How dare they make him speak for the FSF?
Mr. Doubles: Ah... Can we not do that?
Host: I'm sorry, but those are the rules of the game.
Sheiny: I will start from where you left. Ah... Actual achievements of the FSF? Hm... Something like 70% of people still use Windows. And 18% still use MacOS.
Mr. Doubles: Ah... well...
The Red Button was pressed again. And Sheiny got a point.
Mr. Doubles: Help me! What do I say?
Sheiny: You can say something about the... I don't know... dark patterns.
Mr. Doubles: Dark patterns?
Sheiny: Speaking of dark patterns. Free Software's almost total inability to do, say, vendor-lock-ins makes it easy for people to get away from Free Software to proprietary software. But in proprietary software there are vendor-lock-ins everywhere. So we loose people. And there is almost no ability for them to come back. This is very bad.
Mr. Doubles: Ah... Isn't that the point? So people would have freedom to leave something they don't like? I mean... ah...
Sheiny: Yes. But the point is also to make so there is no proprietary software in the world. And our ideology kind of defeats the purpose in and of itself.
Mr. Doubles: Host! Please!
The Red button was pressed. Sheiny was laughing.
Host: No.
Mr. Doubles: I guess we are winning since a lot of corporations donate to Free Software. I don't know.
Sheiny: They donate since they want their control over it.
Mr. Doubles: Ah... But you can make forks!
Sheiny: How many times have you seen a fork of a large piece of software that actually was successful?
Mr. Doubles: Ah... Let me think... Libre-Office.
Sheiny: Only that?
Mr. Doubles: Ah... This game is bullshit!
A red button was pressed again.
Mr. Doubles: Ah... Debian! Ah... Ubuntu! Ah... Arch! Ah... Linux-Libre!
Sheiny: And how many people use Linux-Libre?
Mr. Doubles: Why does it matter!?
The red button was pressed yet again!
Sheiny: Okay. Let's look at the Linux Kernel. How many lines of code there is? One hundred quintillion? Imagine somebody wants to fork that behemoth! It's an outright insanity.
Mr. Doubles: Well, but... Ah.. It's still possible though.
Sheiny: Perhaps HURD was a better design after all. But the FSF failed miserably at it.
Mr. Doubles: Ah... You have to blame Linus Torvalds for it and not the Free Software Foundation.
Sheiny: Hm... That was a good one.
Mr. Doubles: Really?
Sheiny: Yes... Okay let's keep going. Ah... Signal! The developers do not like unofficial clients since they can't have their control over them.
Mr. Doubles: Ah... It's not developed by the Free Software Foundation. Those developers don't represent the views of Free Software.
Sheiny: Good! Okay... When a corporate service uses code under the AGPL and does not release the source code. We sue them and instead of giving us the source code, they just shut down the service. What good is that?
Mr. Doubles: Ah... It's better to have no software than to have proprietary software.
Sheiny: You are good at this!
Mr. Doubles: It's very hard to think for the opposing team.
Sheiny: Just have fun with it.
Mr. Doubles: Yeah. Well... But you won regardless.
Sheiny: Maybe we can try playing it again at some time.
Sheiny won the competition that day. And Mr. Doubles lost both the competition and the argument, by being good at debunking himself. Sometimes people seem to be Mr. Stanley Doubleses. They are looking at the first impression, superficial problems of something and do not try to dig deeper to understand how everything falls into place. Sometimes the criticisms are valid. The way Free Software is meant to be made makes it hard to compete with proprietary software who only cares about wining a competition. But it doesn't mean that we should give up the hopes and dreams, just because the model we propose works against us. We do have sometimes things that sound like hypocrisies on paper. Things like copyleft. But it's only a hypocrisy with it's current implementation that requires the existence of the very thing we fight against. But it could be implemented without it, if the human right for free software would be recognized by the governments. Meanwhile we fight with what we can.
Happy Hacking!
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Anonymous GuestThe interesting article link ( https://www.paritybit.ca/a-critique-of-free-software ) no longer works.
You can find it here: https://www.paritybit.ca/texts/a-critique-of-free-software
Also good it this: https://www.paritybit.ca/blog/free-software-is-an-abject-failure/
I'm not definitely not team-Stallman, as I strongly dislike the ideology, that he cannot stop from creeping in to GNU and FSF.
See e.g. the weird gender bullshit words he included in the "Information for Maintainers of GNU Software" document:
https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Preface
“per”, “pers” and “perself”
blenderdumbassI actually quite like the idea of "per" and have used it myself a few times. The main issue I see with it is that it tends to make people not understand what I am talking about since it is a very unusual word. But now that I am thinking about it, I should use "per" more when crafting intentionally complex articles.
Stallman's own take on "per"
Anonymous GuestGreat to see people having diametrically opposing views.
I hate the gender bullshit words.
It's bastardizing the language, by using ideology to get it to convey ideological propaganda.
But yes, please absolutely go ahead and spread that propaganda yourself. It can help people to more quickly "classify" you.
blenderdumbassMy position is freedom. I see Gender pronouns when used voluntarily as Free Speech. And when forced upon people to use as oppression. People should be free to call things with their own words.
Anonymous GuestYes.
So Stallman is oppressing other editors of the "Information for Maintainers of GNU Software" document, to use these bullshit fairytale words.
;)
blenderdumbassHe did not oppressed anybody in this case. He presented the reasons for his pronouns and the editors, if there were more than one, agreed to use them. Pers had all the freedom to use anything else, but pers chose to use those. Pers were convinced. Not forced.
Sometimes this kind of convincing is called "consent". Which is a foreign idea to some people, usually those that support various forms of power.
If you have no account and want to send an anonymous opinion, you can just ignore the username and password fields. Your anonymous opinion will be reviewed by the registered users. And if they decide that it's good, it will be posted for everyone.