Re: [tlug] [OT] Say _no_ to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Curt Sampson writes:

[The claim that the GPL initiated the outpouring of free software]

 > put me a little on edge. The BSDs aside (as they were pretty much
 > limited to the academic community in the 1970s and '80s anwyay)
 > what about the ever-so-public outpouring of source code for CP/M
 > programs in the late 1970s?

First of all, as RMS always points out "the kernel is only a small
part of the OS".  Give the BSDs their share of credit.  For example,
in the late 80s, when glibc sucked[tm] DJGPP (GCC for DOS) was
distributed with a BSD libc.

And what about the commercial community spawned by the BSD?  Would
anybody care about GNU if AT&T had successfully enforced its copyright
against UC?  Remember that early Linux libcs (the HJ Lu libc) borrowed
very heavily from BSD.  It's true that the idea of putting together a
full distribution was inspired by *GNU*, but surely that doesn't imply
inspiration by the GPL.

One should also mention the X Consortium and the NSA.  Although RMS
doesn't know an X resource from a natural resource AFAICT (he's always
been more interested in TTYs than in a pretty face), he was unstupid
enough to recognize that X Windows was an essential part of the GNU
System.  Ditto TeX and perl.  (You'll note, however, that that in no
way justifies calling it a "GNU/MIT/DEC/HP/Stanford/NSA/Linux System",
although of course calling it a "Linux System" is just not on.)

One should also remember that an awful lot of source code has been
freed by the devils themselves.  One couldn't call Aladdin Ghostscript
"free", but Peter Deutsch would have swallowed the GPL had Stallman
accepted the interpretation that a printer ROM is a not a binary
distribution of software in the sense of being hackable, and therefore
would be liable to payment of royalties.  Stallman didn't accept that,
and Peter, needing a way to extract royalties from printer and fax
manufacturers, went all the way to a no-commercial-use license.  But
in practice, there's no reason except religion for hackers not using
Ghostscript under the Aladdin license.  You have all the hacking and
use and distribution rights you could ever need for movement purposes;
you just can't start a business based on it without Aladdin's
permission.  There's plenty to be learned about graphics programming
by studying that code.

RSAREF certainly has all of the properties of free software, except
for the restriction on use, which was based on a patent held by the
authors.  Most of the sample implementations of the MPEG standard
*are* technically free, because the copyright holder is the
consortium, which owns no patents.  Etc, etc.

 > It seems to me that it's only people who don't remember much before
 > the Apple II, if even that far back, who think that software has
 > always been proprietary until Mr. Stallman, on his white horse,
 > came to the rescue. (Gcc was hardly the first free C compiler!)

True, but it's only fair to remember that that neither Stallman nor
Moglen ever makes that claim.  Stallman was prescient enough to
recognize that there was a colonial rush to stake out intellectual
territory in software as it was happening, and brash enough to say so.
And that's what they say.  That was a major contribution, and the
misunderstanding of the Slashdaughters is not the fault of the
movement leaders.

 > True. And comfort yourself with the fact that the GPL has had some
 > good effects,

Over and above the good effects of the LGPL?[1]  Like what do you have in
mind?  In practice it's one of the most-applied free licenses, but if
it weren't available, do you think that there would be less free
software?

 >  albeit unanticipated by those of us who are interested in,
 > "free as in do the whatever the heck you want with it,"

Te he.  Do you know the "Friedl license"?  "You have the right to
copy, modify, and ... oh, just take it." :-)

 > as opposed to "free as in my ideology is better, so you'd better
 > toe the line." (I've got to come up with a snappier way to say
 > that.)

How about "I'm a open source liberal, not a free software socialist"?

Because the free software movement is fundamentally socialist, not
liberal (despite the name, and vehement denials by rms and others).
And like most socialists, the FSFers confuse "*equal* rights" with
"liberty".

But we're not going to convince people, I don't think.  Most people
(who actually care) far prefer "fair trade" to "free trade"; this is
just one more instance.  Like "fair trade", "free software" is about
protecting the privileges of hackers; the preferences of end users
(who overwhelmingly prefer proprietary software) are not considered,
let alone understood and respected (and I admit I don't understand
that "revealed preference" myself).  And like "fair trade," "free
software" is hardly an ideology.  Rather, it's simply a vague feeling
that one has been screwed because somebody else (who often enough is
way poorer than oneself) got richer.


Footnotes: 
[1]  If rms can rename it for political purposes, I can too.  In my
usage, the "L" stands for "liberal".