On 18/01/18 13:06, Stephane Ascoet wrote:
These are two of the main differences between libre software advocacies(Linus Torvalds and Eric Raymond for the first, RMS for the second) and I think it would be hardly solved now and here..
I think the Torvalds / RMS split is an example of this internal inconsistency playing out, yes.
I suspect though that each person is intelligent enough to see it as an internal contradiction within the FS movement that cannot be resolved dogmatically by either coming down on one side or the other - but ought to be left open for individual activists to work through in their own lives without reference to either luminary.
It seems to me there is not a black and white moral fence that we need to jump over to acheive a fairer society but a moral and functional gradient available, and that ought to be left to individual activists to work out for themselves what is right for them in the conditions they are most concerned about.
For a debian developer, having software that secretly connects to proprietary surveillance / telemetrics would I think be totally unacceptable, but for a 'free', progressive web app games developer, the use of the FB API just for login for example to boost adoption may be acceptable for them, and both ought to be able to identify fully with the FS movement in an egalitarian way.
The point being that the role of the FS activist needs more room to maneuver than is often admitted in forums, and apologists for modest use of proprietary software perhaps ought not to have to contend with the ridicule and moral crusading that comes with more zealous standards in pursuit of an imagined utopia of total proprietary software annihilation when a more modest goal would perhaps be better for computer users, developers and society more generally?
The idea of 'good' and 'bad' here then is problematic because it is a moral judgment being made about software when we know free software can be used to accelerate terrifying consequences and also the reverse is also true - in the case where a discussion about the benefits of free software could easily take place on a proprietary platform like Facebook for example.
The fundamentalist complaint then is about deflating the moral categories of a liberal lifeworld, and turning the critique on those that would use the rhetoric of software freedom to control and manipulate computer users in that way, which is possibly as 'unhelpful' (or if you like - 'reprehensible') as the 'evil' of Facebook and the likes?
If you have ever wondered why people are suspicious of the Free Software message then this would be by wager, that the FS movement hasn't yet reconciled its own internal contradictions on the issue of what software freedom includes (in that it cannot exclude proprietary software on moral grounds, but only through technical measures such as some versions of copyleft) but until it does, not many will want to listen to the messages Torvalds or RMS would prefer they hear?