[NTLUG:Discuss] RMS's Speach

[Steve Baker]

Christopher Browne wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 21:37:20 CST, the world broke into rejoicing as
> Steve Baker <sjbaker1 at airmail.net>  said:
> > kbrannen at gte.net wrote:
> >> For the record, I have no problem with commercial software.  I
> >> think it has a place, a small one, but it's not inheritantly evil.
> 
> >I agree - programmers need to eat, so there has to be commercial
> >software.
> 
> I don't want to be blindly following RMS, but I think there needs to
> be a _bit_ more of an ethical framework than that.  I could use
> largely the same constructs to generate:
> 
>  "Torturers need to eat, so there needs to be a commercial sector of
>   torture and inquisition."
> 
> There needs to be some more useful distinction than just "programmers
> need to eat."  After all, inquisitors also need to eat :-).  Music and
> movie executives need to eat.  Lawyers need to eat.  None of which
> justifies the more aggrevious excesses of those various professions.

Yes - but if you were a lawyer - (or an inquisitor or torturer), you'd
agree that you need to eat - so you either charge for your services or
change jobs. Since I'm a software engineer - I'm offered the same
choice...do commercial software - or change careers.

RMS has never (to my knowledge) sucessfully answered that question.

The closest he comes is by arguing that we can charge for distribution,
documentation, tech support, etc.

But I don't *want* to become a distributor, a technical author or a
tech support person.  I'm a good programmer.

We don't ask authors, musicians, painters or other 'Intellectual
Property Creators' to change careers...what's different about
programmers.

If RMS truly believes that IP should be free then he should NOT
purchase books, magazines, newspapers, or go to the cinema, listen
to concerts, turn on the radio or TV because those are all NON-GPL'ed
IP.

His position is untenable.

> > HOWEVER, I don't think that software that forms part of the
> > infrastructure of our computer systems should be commercial.
> 
> > Hence, I'd be happy to pay for a decent wordprocessor - but I want
> > my NFS server to be OpenSourced.  I'll pay for a game - but not an
> > OpenGL implementation.
> 
> What if someone starts building "document management systems" atop the
> decent word processor?

You can construct artificial examples like that if you like - but it
doesn't change my 'gut feeling' that system functions should be free
and Wordprocessors don't have to be.

If pressed on this point, I'd say that the low level libraries for
writing text to a file and reading it back should be free - because
those are the common infrastructure that both Wordprocessors and
Document management systems rely upon.  However, the higher level
editing functions, GUI, etc that turn that into a product don't have
to be free (IMHO).
 
> Microsoft would like nothing more than for that to take place with
> Word; they'd doubtless _love_ to see people writing applications that
> assume Word as "basic infrastructure."

...and if they released appropriate low level libraries (such as '.doc'
format I/O routines) then that would certainly happen.

> One of the less-well-articulated things about the "GNU/Linux"
> controversy is the fact that there are some interesting extreme
> positions.

Yes - that's certainly true.  I *try* not to be on any of the
extremes...but from someone at RMS's particular extreme, it may
appear that I'm right at the other end.  It's a logarithmic
scale I think!
 
> One of the "GNU Positions" is that "Linux" is merely an operating
> system kernel, which requires a whole bunch of "GNU things" in order
> to have the user space that makes it useful to you and I.  And
> regardless of whether or not you agree with RMS on the "I want credit
> for the name" side of things, this position is not ludicrously
> unsound.

No - it absolutely isn't.  GNU deserves at least as much (and perhaps
much more) credit than Linus for what happened.  But Linus deserves
more credit than his lines-of-code count would imply.  Without the
Linux Kernel, people would be running GNU tools on...what?

* HURD - I don't *think* so.  That has been churning for longer
  than I can remember - and how many machines have you ever seen
  running it?

* BSD - Possibly, but the impression I get is that BSD only became
  popular outside of VAX minicomputer users once Linux lead the way.

* Minix - Maybe.

* Windoze - Probably.

The most likely scenario is that most of us would be using a Cygwin-
like environment under Windoze.  (Is RMS demanding that we call it
GNU/Windoze?)

But demanding that everyone call it something different (and expecially
something as clumsy as GNU/Linux) is just unrealistic.  Humans use language
as a convenient shorthand for their ideas and all attempts to legislate
changes will fail.

Notice the French government's attempts to do this:

 1) The 'Acadamie Francaise' (AKA Language Police) regularly issue edicts
    that carry the force of law to have signboards and such changed to
    eliminate Anglicized words.  For example - every French person I ever
    met (and my Wife is French - so that's a LOT) uses the word "Parking"
    in exactly the way English speakers do.  The Academie banned it's use
    and forced every "Parking Interdit" (No Parking) sign in the whole of
    France to be switched for the official French phrase "Stationnment au
    cote de la rue est Interdit" (Being stationary at the side of the road is
    prohibited).  Do French people still *say* and *think*  "Parking"?
    Well, *DUH*!  English's ability to mutate and hence simplify is very
    purvasive.

 2) The French government made the rule that all movies shot in France
    should be recorded in French.  The result - total devastation of the
    previously thriving French movie business.  All their best actors now
    work in Hollywood.

People have got the word "Linux" stuck in their heads.  Those who matter
*KNOW* that GNU tools are an important component - that's the reason so
many commands begin with the letter 'G'.

-- 
Steve Baker   HomeEmail: <sjbaker1 at airmail.net>
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