[cbenz]

Freedom of users is more important than freedom of vendor. That's because users are the society, the citizens, everyone in fact.

So defending the freedom of the creator to sharing software under her own terms is way less important than defending the freedom of users.

[teekert]

If you think your rights should make it possible for you to do with my creation as you please, then I shall never do business with you. Hell I don't even want to create anything in or for a world that thinks they have anything to say about my creations. I shall share my creations with you as a I damn well please and if you don't want to stick to the conditions that I set for sharing something with you, I shall simply never share anything with you.

Note that I may choose the GPL for my creation and you may share said creation in that case. But only because I choose the GPL as the conditions that applies to my creation.

In fact, I love the GPL, it makes the world a better place but a creator is the only one that can apply it to his creation, not you nor society at large, not in the name of common good or anything else. The creator only, you shall not force a creator lest he will stop creating and you will be worse off because of it.

[cbenz]

Despite the "damn" and "hell" words you use, let me develop my opinion.

It is not the user rights which allow them to do whatever they want. I totally agree that one must not violate the terms expressed by the author.

I don't like to talk about "my" creation or "yours" or somebody's. Because every creator is inspired from previous ones. Someone obviously works for a certain amount of time, but the concept of paternity is strange given all the inspiration. When I write free software, I always consider it would not have been possible to do it without libraries and other inspiration. So it's normal to give back the product of my time to the world, which gave me the base to do it.

I create things not to do business, but to make the world match my ideas and hope people will follow and improve. And I would really be pleased if somebody has a complaint or criticism, and takes the time to "fix" it concretely by coding it, not just expressing it.

In arts (music, painting, etc) this is natural, as in science and research. About computer science, how people can improve then if it's not free software? That would be a "use it or drop it" situation, not adapted for collective improvement.

So using free software licenses, as a creator, makes the world better. The contrary doesn't make the world worse, but freezes it until free software appears. That's waste of time in a sense!

That's why I don't recommend people to use proprietary software. Because it maintains the world in a situation which is not ideal, globally.

I understand people want to make money for a living. But there are economic models quite OK with free software. We have to find a way, I mean collectively, to finance free software. That would be an improvement for society,better than defending proprietary software.

Finally pardon my English, I'm not native.

[ajuc]

That depends on the software and market, surely. If there's 5 open source alternatives, is it more important to get 6th for the minimal gain in freedom for the users, or is it more important to let the creator keep his freedom to share it under whichever licence he prefers?

What if there's 100 open source alternatives already?

[madez]

An "alternative" is is not necessarily a factual alternative. I'd said if a solution has many users, the freedom of the users has priority.

[legulere]

The only freedom of the three freedoms that applies to users (almost nobody is a developer!) is the freedom to redistribute .

So it is basically about the freedom to copy someone else's work without compensation.

[belorn]

The right to repair movement is in direct opposition with current US copyright law over DRM. The reason is not for "copy someone else's work without compensation".

Karen Sandler and several security researcher want free software freedom in regard to medical devices. They want to verify the code and even out the power balance between those that depend on the code for their life and the producer of it. That too is not about "copy someone else's work without compensation".

Yesterday there was an article that said that voting machines should be open source. The concern people have there is not about "copy someone else's work without compensation".

[legulere]

I agree that the current DRM laws are bad and that you should be allowed to inspect medical software in certain circumstances.

That has nothing to do with the GPL or the three freedoms though.

[belorn]

Companies that avoid GPL also avoid licenses that forbids DRM and guaranties access to source code.

But to reiterate the four freedoms:

Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose. With DRM this is impossible. The DRM business model to prevent generic parts rely on users not having freedom 0.

Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works. Without this researchers can't do inspection of medical software or voting machines.

Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program. Without this a person can't improve their tractor that they bought, even if they are by law the private property owner of the device.

That leaves:

Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute and make copies so you can help your neighbor.

So for the cases above, three out of four software freedoms is required.

[majewsky]

Even the freedom to use is a freedom that applies to users.

With a proprietary product, the vendor can make changes behind your back via the auto-update backdoor, and you cannot do anything about it. With an open-source product, if a user does not like what the vendor is doing in the new version, they can just stick with the old version.

(It used to work that way with proprietary software, too, but today I cannot really think of software that cannot be forcefully end-of-lifed by the vendor. For example, look at how Samsung disabled the Note 7 phones with OTA updates.)

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

That's like saying that the freedom to repair your own car does not apply to car owners because almost nobody is a car mechanic.

The free software freedoms are what allow any end-user to freely choose anyone they want for audits, repairs and extensions of their software, instead of being dependent on a monopolistic supplier. Whether the individual user has any clue of software development is completely irrelevant.

[CaptainZapp]

Your remark reminds me of a /. signature of old:

  If you don't like the GPL write your own damn software

I agree with the sig, but certainly not with your comment.

[reacweb]

I think that everybody should be a developer and that programing should be far more easier. Why programming languages are so tricky ?

[jrimbault]

Because natural language is ambiguous and rocks are dumb.