[noufalibrahim]

My earliest exposure to free software was via. GCC and Emacs. The early debates on Gnu/Linux, OSS vs. Free Software etc. were all things I imbibed back then. The ideological stand of the FSF was appealing to me when I was younger and really affected my outlook.

Over the years, I can't help but feeling that while the FSF's core message is still relevant and true, their tactics have more or less pushed them outside of the mainstream conversation on technology. This is a tragedy and I'm not sure what lessons to draw from this but I would have liked to see a larger role for the FSF in the modern tech. discourse.

[pjmlp]

I am confident that after GNU generation is gone, everything will fold back as it used to be.

We are already living it due to the rise of non-copyleft licenses, return to the shareware model only with another set of marketing names for newer generations, return of timesharing with thin clients only with newer set of nomenclature for newer generations, most relevant FOSS projects are sponsored by big corps for their own purposes as PR don't buy food and shelter, ....

[shadowgovt]

The largest challenge the free software movement still faces is philosophical.

The original underpinning of the Four Freedoms is "I own this hardware; how dare someone else dictate how it operates?" That assertion falls flat in the Cloud era, yet Cloud services are way too convenient and useful to just ignore them or try to tell everyone the One True Path is up the mountain to the hermitage of traditional desktop, offline, disconnected software.

I look to the Fediverse as a potential next good model: the idea that if you run a part of the cloud, you have a vested interest in it, it's yours, and how dare someone else dictate etc.

... but it's a fundamentally different challenge than the original pioneers of the movement fought against corporations and monopoly manufacturers and sellers.

[zelphirkalt]

I hope it doesn't come to that, but some indications are there.

The problem is, that nowadays manufacturers and big tech giants can or do lock down their devices much more than when the Free Software movement started out. Also the hardware is way harder to reverse engineer, if possible at all. It is difficult to imagine "a new <word for freedom> Software movement" to be initiated in our times. What hardware can they rely on? How would they break the shackles of proprietary software and hardware?

[tomrod]

<word for freedom>

Right to Repair just about covers it, IMO. You can't repair something if you can't either have access to the source code or flash the source code, or otherwise access the internals.

[noufalibrahim]

That's sort of my point. I don't want it to come to that but a huge of part of why it's come to that were tactical mistakes (esp. in communication) on the part of the FSF.

[j-bos]

Been thinking about this, and imagine a solution being force multiplying the power of free hackers with LLMs, faster and faster iteration. But I don't know much.

[cies]

> I am confident that after GNU generation is gone, everything will fold back as it used to be.

Nah. The wheel of enlightenment has been set in motion and is beyond stoppable.

The issue I see is corporate involvement. They (corps) like free stuff too, and has helped enormously in the adoption (most code FLOSS on most servers, AND on most mobiles!). But corps has different agenda's than activist individuals, leading to BSD/Apache/etc over (A)(L)GPL(vX) and hosted opensource-derived services like what the cloud corps offer. Patents, non-copyleft-licensing and hosted are some big obstacles to the GNU/FSF end goals.

[phkahler]

>> But corps has different agenda's than activist individuals, leading to BSD/Apache/etc over (A)(L)GPL(vX) and hosted opensource-derived services like what the cloud corps offer. Patents, non-copyleft-licensing and hosted are some big obstacles to the GNU/FSF end goals.

The battle between copyleft and "more permissive" licenses is going to be long and slow. There is a place for MIT/BSD licenses, but there is way too much software moving that direction IMHO. Some big popular projects will need to get consumed and effectively hijacked by commercial interests before anyone sees this as an actual problem rather than a hypothetical. But first there will need to be such a project under one of those licenses.

[pjmlp]

I covered that on the rest of my comment as well.

[jimmaswell]

I'm glad to see non-copyleft get more popular, personally. Copyleft comes off to me as sanctimonious in its attempt to strong-arm anyone who uses the code into following its philosophy for the entire codebase. I could be wrong, but my intuition is that no company is going to GPL their entire codebase just to use some library, so it only results in wasted developer energy when employees have to duplicate the library closed-source. (Or they just use it anyway and hope they don't get caught.)

[psychoslave]

Let’s see.

On the one hand you have people motivated by the ideal of software "developed specifically for the sake of users' freedom".

On the other hand you have dystopian corporate whose biggest dream is slave labor and locked-in cash cows from which value is drained 'til the last drop.

There is no tactic for obtain reconciliation of two world views in direct and systematic opposition. If engaging in a tactic lead to compromising on ends for a local success, these ends are betrayed and longer justify any action.

[sbuk]

> "On the other hand you have dystopian corporate whose biggest dream is slave labor and locked-in cash cows from which value is drained 'til the last drop."

An therein is the problem I, and I know many others, have with the FSF and it's followers. This language is just not compelling - in fact, it's a massive turn off, even if you think it's true. This comes off as the ravings of a crackpot! Consider "On the other hand, there are very real concerns about some corporations, with evidence that they are prioritizing profits over ethics, potentially leading to exploitative practices and consumers feeling trapped in long-term commitments.". IMHO says exactly the same thing, conveys the same gravity and prompts engagement.

[noufalibrahim]

Precisely. It's hard to argue that these "dystopian corporate" entities haven't added any value to the society. You can make a solid case that the intangible costs are too high but starting off with accusing them of "slave labor" and "locked-in cash cows" is a non starter and it's been the kind of rhetoric that the FSF has always used.

I don't (and never wanted) the FSF to dilute its message but I do think they'd benefit from someone who can communicate their ideas in a more palatable way. Perhaps it's too late anyway.

[shadowgovt]

I think they often serve a useful purpose moving the Overton window... But it's why I can nod respectfully at them from over here, but not join them. The core of the free software movement embraces a radicalism that's out of line with reality and would actually reflect a worse world than the one we live in (who's going to make locked-down systems for people who don't want to be their own sysadmins if we actually kill off the closed-corporate model? I, for one, am not stepping up to volunteer to be the one who does that for all my relatives who are a stone's throw away from getting their stuff ownzed if they had admin rights to it).

[mbakke]

That's a false dichotomy. It's possible to have a locked down device that allows full access/visibility if you jump through enough hoops.

(Android is almost there, software wise, but closed vendor firmwares are still rampant).

[gglitch]

I'm no zealot or apologist for the FSF, but on a philosophical level, your alternate expression (and the expression above that you're amending) feel like they both miss the point altogether. I don't think the FSF cares at all about corporations, profits, or long-term commitments. Their whole point, as I understand it, has to do with whether a given license leaves the door open for the well to get poisoned. A license is either prophylactically sound or it isn't.

[sbuk]

While I would agree that was the original purpose, the rhetoric has been closer to anti-corporation for a while. This seemed to change around the time the GPLv3 came out.

[thesuperbigfrog]

>> An therein is the problem I, and I know many others, have with the FSF and it's followers. This language is just not compelling - in fact, it's a massive turn off, even if you think it's true. This comes off as the ravings of a crackpot!

I suppose it depends on who is talking and what is being said, but the FSF message can be very direct:

https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM?t=57

[psychoslave]

Now, obviously not every small business out there are necessarily fitting such a description. Just like not every FLOW author live and breath by the stance that every single bit out there should contribute to people freedom and empowerment.

If anything, when an audience is unease with what is obvious caricatures which overstate the usual median traits, there is all the more concerns about the situation.

[badsectoracula]

This reminds me George Carlin's skit on soft language:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67k9eEw9AY

[Affric]

> their tactics have more or less pushed them outside of the mainstream conversation on technology.

They always have been on the outside. There has always been, and will always be, a concerted campaign by those who benefit from closed software against the FSF.

[grumbel]

The issue for me is more that the FSF hasn't kept up with what is happening in technology. Software these days is often a secondary concern, as you aren't the one owning the computer, instead it is all running remotely and it's really about the data and control of said data. The licenses the FSF offers, including the AGPL, are inadequate to address this.

Over in Europe we got the GDPR, which does actually address a lot of data related issues quite well. But as far as Free Software licenses go, there still isn't any equivalent or even much discussion on how to attack the problem in the first place.

FSF feels stuck in solving 1980s problems, while having little to say about 2020s problems. "Don't do it", "self-host" or "run locally" doesn't cut it when a lot of software fundamentally has to be distributed in some fashion.

[thesuperbigfrog]

>> Software these days is often a secondary concern, as you aren't the one owning the computer, instead it is all running remotely and it's really about the data and control of said data. The licenses the FSF offers, including the AGPL, are inadequate to address this.

The irony is that most cloud computing infrastructure is powered by free and open source software.

Linux, bash, docker, Kubernetes, Golang, and so many others make it happen. Even Microsoft has come around to open source with GitHub and many projects released there: https://github.com/microsoft

>> FSF feels stuck in solving 1980s problems, while having little to say about 2020s problems.

What 2020s problems are not being addressed?

Edit: Looking at your comment in another reply concerning users controlling their own data, this essay addresses the topic:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...

I think it comes back to trust, transparency, and the laws where you live.

Users should have choice of how their data is handled and what can be done with it. In order for that to work, they must 1) have a way to legally challenge entities who would use their data without their permission and 2) alternative ways to accomplish the work that they want to do with their data.

Laws where users live must address 1). Free software can help with 2).

[zelphirkalt]

Which concern specifically does AGPL not address?

[grumbel]

AGPL is only concerned with source code, it doesn't address how to handle a user's data in any way. Giving you the source, while keeping your data under locks is perfectly fine under AGPL.

Meanwhile the GDPR has the concept of "Data Portability" and requires every service to allow users to export their data, so that they can move it somewhere else. As far as I know, there is no Free Software license with similar requirements. They all stop at the source code, which just isn't enough in a modern SAAS based world.

[freedrull]

> you aren't the one owning the computer

Sounds to me like they are more relevant than ever. :)

[jbaber]

This is a very good way of putting this.

[roenxi]

Any group that advocates freedom gets pushed outside the mainstream conversation. There is continuous pressure against freedom from any centralised source of power - including the sort of people who set the parameters on what 'mainstream' conversation is. Powerful people rarely see freedom for less powerful people as something that will help them (although the evidence suggests that it is, most people can't handle that sort of indirect and trusting reasoning). Freedom was, is and will be a radical idea.

[red_admiral]

There is free as in apache/BSD/MIT, and free as in GPL. In many parts of industry, going the "purist" route and putting your library under GPL is a sure way to make sure no-one will use it (the LGPL doesn't completely solve this problem either). Whereas more pragmatic approaches to free software have absolutely taken off.

Big names like React, Angular etc. are MIT licensed, for example.

It's like the FSF invented "free 1.0", and then others came along with "free 2.0" and it's a genuine improvement. The difference here is very much one that strikes at the FSF's core message.

[ta1243]

Being empowered to remove freedom is not a genuine improvement.

There are certainly issues with GPL software, either from the "you can't run modified software on your hardware" or "saas isn't distribution" get-out, or from the "small company X develop free software and charge for support/hosting/etc, so large company Y take that free software and charge for support/hosting/etc without giving back"

The former has attempts to tackle things with gplv3 and agpl, but the latter is a problem. A bunch of people make something cool like elsastic, or terraform, or which is free software, funded from hosting and support, then large beomouth with a near-monopoly on computing offers it with a different label as part of their provision. Companies prefer to buy from amazon/google/microsoft than random small company, and that seems somewhat wrong, but I don't see the FSF approach to marrying

1) how to keep software free 2) how to keep developers fed

When you have parasitical cloud companies

[globular-toast]

It's more like "free 0.5", not "free 2.0". MIT and other permissive licences are basically "free more me, but maybe not for you". There is only one possible reason that you want to reserve the right to restrict the freedom of others: you plan to restrict the freedom of others.

Individual freedom is easy. The King has always been free to do as he wishes. It's freedom for the entire community now and forever that matters.

[severus_snape]

Let's see 20 years from now which of React, Angular and Linux is still around.

[pjmlp]

After Linus and other key figures in Linux are gone, lets see how long it takes to still be relevant, or completly integrated in other big corp products, borg style.

Not that many of us can then watch it fold, as we belong to the same generation, however that won't change the evolution of computing world.

[SSLy]

With the non-enforcement of the license (see vmware, various chinese companies), Linux kernel is de facto MIT, yes.

[severus_snape]

My experience as an embedded software programmer is quite the opposite. We do care about releasing our Linux modifications under GPLv2, and we do contribute to community when it makes sense.

> see vmware

from https://lwn.net/Articles/696936/: "The court ruled that he had not provided enough specificity about the code he was claiming had been used by the company. The merits of the GPL and whether the two main parts of VMware's product constitute a derived work of the kernel were not even considered."

That doesn't seem to prove anything.

> various chinese companies

HiSilicon (https://github.com/hisilicon/linux-hisi) releases its fork.

[klardotsh]

And then as a counter-example, Boox frequently (always?) refuses to release kernel sources because... basically "we don't feel like it and nobody's ever going to be able to force us anyway" reasons, last I read. The latest development I heard in this space was that folks were trying to sic some YouTuber on them who has connections in China (I believe lives there, too) to try and guilt them into abiding by the copyright law they agreed to by using Linux.

It's... not a good time.

[cdelsolar]

React?

[orthoxerox]

And now we're moving to "free 3.0" (aka screw you Amazon), which is more restrictive than MIT or GPL.

[pipo234]

There are a lot of issues with FSF's perspective and the way they were written down. Running GNU derivative in a proprietary cloud is one of them. RedHat (in)ability to make a fair profit is another. Still Google's Linux "theft" led to more openness in Android than Apple's BSD Unix rip off.

Regardless of the license chosen, sustainability of open source is a problem. (I'm still baffled by the absence of government sponsoring; why do governments around the globe continue to spend billions on proprietary IT infrastructure, databases, and desktop computers?!)

Not sure if yet another license is the answer, but yes we could do with a new model of what "free" and openness entails.

[cxr]

> I'm still baffled by the absence of government sponsoring; why do governments around the globe continue to spend billions on proprietary IT infrastructure, databases, and desktop computers?

It's not a project that's talked about very much because it's not the trendy flavor of OSS dev that people generally have in mind when they refer to sustainability problems—which I suspect for most people means funding their favorite niche devops packages that are of dubious merit to begin with (and that we might very well be better off for not having in the world)—but it is pretty incredible that there isn't e.g. any well-known effort by at least one US government agency to put a fraction of what they pour into Microsoft into ReactOS instead, especially after the Windows XP crisis—and even if only to the extent that it should be made stable enough for that org's own narrow use e.g. with a particular piece of equipment/application. I never hear of anything like this. Not even a hint of trials or experimentation. Why?

This is the difference between GNU and the modern, GitHub-centric open source movement. For all the criticism about barriers to entry for non-technical audiences that have been leveled at GNU and GNU-adjacent projects, GNU has always been focused on users and the types of things that humans could conceivably actually want to use, and not the sort of devops shovelware that gets chucked into a repo and inexplicably chugs along with much fanfare because it's used by several dozen enterprises on the backend despite being of no real interest to an ordinary person. GNU userspace directly empowers millions of people (including many of those working on the uninteresting flash-in-the-pan shovelware) to do their computing (for work or for play) every day.

[callalex]

> I'm still baffled by the absence of government sponsoring

On the one hand, I agree, but on the other hand I am relieved that I don’t have to deal with people calling my OS “ObamaOS” and unleashing a barrage of hateful spam towards maintainers because of misguided political nonsense.

[rightbyte]

Redhat had been getting a profit for like 10+ years by now. How would that not be enough?

[ThrowawayR2]

Profitable, sure. But businesses that are poised for future success don't sell themselves, particularly to a has-been like IBM.

[rightbyte]

What would the stockowners care who pays them? I don't think they have much emotional attachment to Redhat.

IBM just have to pay more than the stockholders believe the stock is worth. It has nothing to do with if the owners believe in the company or not.

[froh]

what do you mean by "fair profit"?

[pipo234]

In case of Red Hat? Given their substantial contributions to Linux, primarily funded by support contracts, certification and consultancy I think they deserve to be profitable. At the same time, I as a user, also prefer to not pay them and have free access to their software.

For some time this was acceptable to all parties. But then companies not competing in Linux contribution started competing in the support contracts, certification and consultancy business, by giving away RedHat's free beer.

Wouldn't it be great if Oracle, Amazon (and Rocky, Alma) could continue to rely on RedHat's efforts but share / contribute / upstream revenue profits made consulting, certifying, supporting rather than freeloading on commons like RedHat? Forcing a distro fork the way RedHat IBM seems to want seems like an unwanted technical solution to a mere business/money problem.

[pjmlp]

MIT predates GNU.

GNU only took off due to AT&T wanting back the money they weren't allowed to charge for UNIX during its early lifetime, thus BSD uncertain future.

[severus_snape]

> and then others came along

GPL came after MIT (https://nitter.net/humphd/status/1112747178685026304)

> and it's a genuine improvement

How?

[red_admiral]

Let's say you want to develop software as a job, and make enough money to live. You also have the ethics not to go into the ad-supported track-everything mobile apps business. There is still good money to be made without selling your soul, but most of it is in the B2B not the B2C market. And there, you negotiate the terms of who owns what individually for each contract anyway, at least if you have any sense.

The problem with the GPL is that its "infectious" nature does not play nicely with how the B2B world works, where you might link against your client's in-house proprietary libraries, which even though they're never planning to distribute them, they very much don't want their own IP to become GPLed as a result.

So if you want to bring in a library to make pretty graphs or something, it very much matters what the licence is - MIT is generally fine though.

(How and whether a FOSS library author should be paid for the fact that one corporation used their library to develop software for another corporation, is an entirely separate matter.)

[teddyh]

> The problem with the GPL is that its "infectious" nature does not play nicely with how the B2B world works, where you might link against your client's in-house proprietary libraries, which even though they're never planning to distribute them, they very much don't want their own IP to become GPLed as a result.

Standard GPL FUD. Firstly, linking against proprietary libraries is fine as long as you don’t distribute the result to any third party. Secondly, no IP can “become GPLed” unless anybody chooses to make it so.

[red_admiral]

Some of the companies I've worked with, and their lawyers especially, have explicitly said that for them anything GPL in the application layer was a no-no (Linux as OS was fine though). This is on code that will never be distributed outside internal systems.

[teddyh]

Company lawyers being weird and wrong about GPL, film at 11. The GPL paranoia strikes deep.

[type0]

> anything GPL in the application layer was a no-no (Linux as OS was fine though).

well, just proves how hypocritical it is

[zelphirkalt]

Copy-left licenses can work better for companies than non-copy-left licenses, if those companies are actually interested in improving the thing or creating the thing. They can release as GPL or AGPL and then profit from others contributing. If they released as MIT or other non-copy-left license, any competitor can use and modify without contributing back, which is the actual scenario any company should be afraid of. Copy-left actually helps companies that are not simply leeching.

[bonzini]

Google uses GPL software all the time and links it to proprietary software all the time. Since it runs on their servers and is never distributed, this is perfectly fine.

[goodpoint]

> don't want their own IP to become GPLed as a result

This is not how copyright works. No license can magically turn other code into GPL.

You can choose between using GPL libraries in internal proprietary products, or use LGPL libraries in published products or release your product as FOSS.

The choice is yours. There is no "infection".

[throw0101b]

'The Origin of the “MIT License”':

* https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9263265

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34636092