Long Live the Free Software Foundation

74 点作者 upofadown大约 2 年前

14 条评论

dale_glass大约 2 年前

I don't think the FSF is healthy.The evidence can be had right here. About the only thing you hear about the FSF these days is controversy about Stallman and the peripheral issues about that. The FSF should be huge, and have a very prominent impact on the relevant parts of the industry, like say HN, various subreddits and slashdot. Instead it barely shows up anywhere.If the FSF isn't prominent in its home turf, then things are even more dire anywhere outside it. A movement that wants to fight for user freedom has to somehow reach those users. Problem is, these days they barely know that it exists, and what they do hear about is all unflattering (eg, Stallman).The FSF has a very tough mission to accomplish. Gathering a few like-minded people at a Linux conference is certainly a good thing, but comes very far from wielding the political influence needed to actually get things done.Worse, even on its own home turf it's losing relevance. The FSF should be aggressively keeping up with modern developments and reacting to them, and finding ways to spread its message. But it seems woefully out of date in that respect.

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mattl大约 2 年前

I worked at the FSF for a number of years. The FSF has some hard working and dedicated staff, but is dogged by a number of the issues Drew deVault mentions in their article. <a href="https://drewdevault.com/2023/04/11/2023-04-11-The-FSF-is-dying.html" rel="nofollow">https://drewdevault.com/2023/04/11/2023-04-11-The-FSF-is-dyi...</a>I think free software and open source are at this point the same thing. A lot of people who care about software freedom issues do so under the banner of open source because of the issues of the FSF and wanting to distance themselves from the FSF.The FSF doesn't do a good job of promoting free software. Take a look at the FSF homepage -- where's the messaging on getting typical computer users (especially those on Windows or a Mac or a Chromebook) to use free software? The approach seems to be that either you install Linux from a small subset of minority distributions -- <a href="https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html</a> -- or nothing.Thirteen years ago (2010) I worked on a campaign aimed at end-users and it looks like it has been updated very little since -- <a href="https://www.fsf.org/working-together/moving" rel="nofollow">https://www.fsf.org/working-together/moving</a> -- getting this done was an uphill battle as the FSF didn't want to promote Firefox at the time.Where is the end user campaign for using free software? Where is the EFF for users?

ryukafalz大约 2 年前

From an outside perspective, the FSFE has felt for a while like a much more effective organization than the FSF. The "Public Money, Public Code" campaign seems like it's actually had some results (with European governments adopting free software in a few cases), while the FSF has done... seemingly not much of note, for a long time?LibrePlanet is generally a good conference, but outside of that the FSF doesn't seem to be doing much impactful work, and the most I ever hear about it these days is about controversies surrounding Stallman.I think we probably need a new organization to take up the cause at this point.

jmull大约 2 年前

To me this is a better affirmation of "The Free Software Foundation is dying" than a rebuttal.Focused on the distinctions between FS and OS, building an antagonistic narrative between them, doubling-down on purity.I would agree "dying" is too strong a word, though, since there's no reason the FSF can't continue to exist indefinitely, as a kind of club of like-minded enthusiasts. But the direction they are going now, their activities will be ever more insular, having less and less affect on anyone but themselves.Their stated mission is "to promote computer user freedom. We defend the rights of all software users." If you aren't having an effect outside your own group it's hard to see how that can be fulfilled.(Not that I'm sad to see it end up this way. I've always understood how developer hostile it is.)

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phoe-krk大约 2 年前

The clue of the rebuttal, to the best of my understanding:> Free Software cares about users and computer owners, Open Source cares about programmers. (......) And they are two separate things which Mr. DeVault—in accordance with many, many other knowledgeable and coders and activists and authoritative persons in the Open Source world—elides and blurs together in one giant movement.

nextaccountic大约 2 年前

The article doesn't touch on it, but this explains why open source advocates prefer permissive licenses like MIT (which is in the OSS view "more free" because they grant more freedom to developers - even the freedom to make their software proprietary!), while free software advocates prefer copyleft licenses like GPL, which grants more freedoms to end users at expense of the developer themselves

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alwaysbeconsing大约 2 年前

I think this is really missing the point. The essay from Drew DeVault didn't say "the FSF is dying, and good riddance", or "help me kill the FSF", or anything like that. I read it as aligned with their goals, wanting them to be realized... and saying the FSF is doing a bad job at achieving them, with suggestions for how to improve. This whole response is defending against an imaginary attack that wasn't made.

seabass-labrax大约 2 年前

<pre><code> living the ideal Free Software lifestyle—that is, using no proprietary software or hardware, meaning no SteamDeck, no game consoles, no smartphones, etc. </code></pre> I'm a proud owner of a PinePhone, on which I run an operating system called postmarketOS; there's no proprietary software to be seen. Due to the amazing success of postmarketOS and the projects they package, I can enjoy cellular networking and a whole host of apps. Occasionally the lacklustre performance of the hardware can be frustrating, but apparently the faster PinePhone Pro is vastly better in that regard - as it was, the PinePhone was a fraction of the price of more popular phones. Furthermore, I can even SSH between my PC and PinePhone via the internet or USB to transfer files!I think my ideal Free Software lifestyle seems preferable to the author's :)

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lapinot大约 2 年前

Maybe i'm mistaken but i believe there's some serious misreading of the original text (of ddvault). I'm pretty sure ddvault knows about the distinction between open source and free/libre and i'm also pretty sure he's definitely on the free/libre part. Politically it's pretty clear the distinction between the two is the same one as between liberals and the left. And his blog regularly features words definitely hinting at more or less leftist and anticapitalists concepts (eg "union" in <a href="https://drewdevault.com/2021/09/27/Let-distros-do-their-job.html" rel="nofollow">https://drewdevault.com/2021/09/27/Let-distros-do-their-job....</a>).So for me this "rebutal" is a misreading insofar that it is treated as an attack on free/libre coming from the oss world, whereas i definitely view it as a call for reflectivity and strategical reevaluation coming from within free/libre.Or maybe it wasn't and i'm seeing in it what i want to see: i definitely consider myself on the political side of free software as some sort of communism applied to technology and science, but i also find the fsf very dusty and dogmatic. Looks very much like nowadays's communist parties: a long time since these weren't on the forefront of these revolutionary ideas.

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photochemsyn大约 2 年前

It seems like the next major stepping stone in FOSS will have to be the replacement of proprietary blobs for hardware drivers by open source alternatives, and that in turn is most likely to come out of the RISC-V ecosystem, not from anything related to Intel or ARM.So, learn assembly and C, that's one takeaway for anyone interested in this area.

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guilhas大约 2 年前

Some people are happy with ChatGPT, some prefere Llama, FSF people like projects with all the source and training data availableIs that too close to a dream? Maybe. Is it misguided? I don't think soEveryone will benefit even if smaller projects that you have access to all the steps from start to finish. Either for learning or new companies to competeToday is very difficult, almost impossible, to run a fully open source PC, from firmwares, BIOS, drivers, OS, software... but I am happy for FSF to keep the dream alive as there is no other organization bothering with itThe other extreme also exists where the company would like you to sell you hardware and software that you'll never own. That you have to connect to the network, login, and it asks everyday if it is allowed to run. Only for the subscribed purpose, user, and location. Otherwise to disable itself and contact local authorities

PaulDavisThe1st大约 2 年前

Even though I've spent decades working on software I release under the GPL, I try to direct as many people as possible to my friend Louigi Verona's excellent dissection of the many issues with "The Four Freedoms" rationale for free software:<a href="https://louigiverona.com/?page=projects&s=writings&t=philosophy&a=philosophy_freedoms" rel="nofollow">https://louigiverona.com/?page=projects&s=writings&t=philoso...</a>

markphip大约 2 年前

I am more of an open-source than free-software advocate.I think this post explains it well and it was also my reaction to DeVault's post. I have no opinion on whether the FSF is dying but what I did not understand about DeVault's post is what they can do about it. The only reason for FSF to exist is to protect the rights of the users of software, often at the expense of the developers. That is why copyleft exists, why the FSF exists. They cannot "change" and embrace open source and still have any purpose.You could argue that they could be friendlier to OSS but if they are, how does that help the free software movement?For the free software movement to be successful the open source movement has to be less successful. More developers need to embrace copyleft licenses over MIT, BSD, Apache.As a developer, my interest in open source has always been in engaging with other developers. I prefer that model, even if a company wants to go make money off my code. I had option to choose a different license, or not contribute to an existing project. I did so for the collaboration and opportunity to work with other developers to solve the same problem I needed to solve. Copyleft licensed software, more often than not, has other goals.

taylodl大约 2 年前

"Free Software cares about users and computer owners, Open Source cares about programmers."And that's why I care about Free Software and not Open Source - and I'm a programmer! Freedom goes way beyond us "technical elites" and as such, I see Open Source as elitist since it cares only about an elite few.Free Software cares about everybody.