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by DetroitThrow 1909 days ago
"though it kind of does"

It absolutely does not, and this has been understood throughout my entire time contributing to free software and participating in the movement. You can't just create purity tests for free software as a convenient way to demonize people when there's literally decades of core contributors and champions who'd then fall in this brand new exclusion zone.
1 comments
caslon 1909 days ago
It's hardly an arbitrary purity test; if you see proprietary software as immoral, and the free software movement as a moral movement, then people who release proprietary software aren't part of the free software movement. This has been the case since the ideological genesis of the movement.

You seem to be arguing in favor of the open source movement, which is a distinct one, with far different goals (rather than being a moral movement based around liberation, it's a movement based around profiteering free software).

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DetroitThrow 1909 days ago
"It's hardly an arbitrary purity test"

I never said it was, I said it was one which seems to have been created on the spot as a convenient way to demonize "others" given that the moral movement has never been morally bankrupt enough for the last few decades to exclude individuals based on their participation in proprietary projects.

And no, I'm very explicitly talking about the free software movement, not open source. There is nothing in my statements to suggest that I was talking about open source other than that I'm yet another that didn't meet your ahistorical and anti-freedom purity test.

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caslon 1909 days ago
> I never said it was, I said it was one which seems to have been created on the spot as a convenient way to demonize "others" given that the moral movement has never been morally bankrupt enough for the last few decades to exclude individuals based on their participation in proprietary projects.

Free software has always been a moral movement; it's those who promote proprietary software that are morally bankrupt.

> And no, I'm very explicitly talking about the free software movement, not open source. There is nothing in my statements to suggest that I was talking about open source other than that I'm yet another that didn't meet your ahistorical and anti-freedom purity test.

Being against proprietary software is pro-freedom, and nothing I'm saying is ahistorical. You're pretty clearly conflating the open source movement (based around profiteering and not caring about freedom) with the free software movement (has always been about morality).

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DetroitThrow 1909 days ago
>Free software has always been a moral movement; it's those who promote proprietary software that are morally bankrupt.

Ah, so those employed by proprietary software inherently promote it? You lack a grasp of those within the free software movement, then.

>Being against proprietary software is pro-freedom, and nothing I'm saying is ahistorical. You're pretty clearly conflating the open source movement (based around profiteering and not caring about freedom) with the free software movement (has always been about morality).

Again, you're inventing purity tests because you've never contributed to the movement and you clearly lack an understanding of the movement's history. The GNU Manifesto and Debian Social Contract are in direct contradiction to your purity test, and the former explicitly discusses the subject at hand.

My advice is to read more of the source documents about the movement or contribute to it before creating revisionist and anti-freedom purity tests.

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dang 1909 days ago
Please don't get involved in tit-for-tat flamewars on HN. They're tedious and inevitably degenerate. Also, please omit swipes, regardless of how wrong or provocative some other comments are or you feel they are. It only makes things worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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caslon 1909 days ago
> Ah, so those employed by proprietary software inherently promote it?

This is how it works, yes. We are complicit in our employers' deeds, whether that's working for a company that does ICE contracts or working for a company that harms people with proprietary software.

> Again, you're inventing purity tests because you've never contributed to the movement and you clearly lack an understanding of the movement's history.

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

> The GNU Manifesto and Debian Social Contract are in direct contradiction to your purity test, and the former explicitly discusses the subject at hand.

The GNU Manifesto is far different in aim than the Debian Social Contract, and it doesn't whatsoever encourage proprietary software. It promotes selling software, which isn't the same thing. It criticizes proprietary software at multiple points and insults people who make it:

"Proprietary and secret software is the moral equivalent of runners in a fist fight. Sad to say, the only referee we've got does not seem to object to fights; he just regulates them (“For every ten yards you run, you can fire one shot”). He really ought to break them up, and penalize runners for even trying to fight."

It might be time for a reread.

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dang 1909 days ago
Please don't get involved in tit-for-tat flamewars on HN. They're tedious and inevitably degenerate. Also, please omit swipes, regardless of how wrong or provocative some other comments are or you feel they are. It only makes things worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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