(From a home user perspective)

I understand that it’s an exaggeration to make a point. Nevertheless are we jugging users or the absolute extremes of these groups?

- you probably can find free riders among FOSS folks, but do they make up a bigger fraction of all open-source users, than the fraction of free riders among users of proprietary platforms?

- open-source platform users pay for software by 1.) donations to developers 2.) donations to communities and 3.) buying software (yes, they do!)

An OEM license of Windows cost about 90€, and let’s say it’s used for three years. Many open-source platforms users donate that or more to their community. It’s a trade independent of recipient.

Then you have examples of software widely used that’s hard to sell because it doesn’t deliver some extra value. A typical example is Nero’s attempt to sell their burning software. It’s good, but doesn’t have enough extra features for most to make it a better buy than K3b. The same goes for some media players.

If and when FOSS and Pirates unite philosophically, it’s still not a rule or anything that distinguish open-source from proprietary users. Free doesn’t mean without a price tag, and that was never the idea behind the term.

Kim, sorry, but I dont buy the donation thing. As someone has written somewhere on the internet, putting the 'donate’ button on your site is like a beggar putting his money jar on the street. Because I cannot formulate my thoughts well enough, here are 2 articles on the subject:

http://www.techbroil.com/2011/01/funding-software-with-donations-is.html

http://www.techbroil.com/2011/09/where-is-centos-61.html

Anyways, I cannot remember where I read this, but there was some free/open source game for linux/unix, which was quite popular, something like tux racer. And some people repackaged the game (without modifying it) and started selling it. The outcry was very huge, despite the fact, that the license actually permits the situation and nothing wrong was done. So actually, I agree with this TM.

Putting a price tag or donate button doesn’t make any difference to me. If it delivers something I want I pay, and if it doesn’t I don’t pay. What’s the difference between I choosing a price or I decide whether a set price is fair or not?

The links you provide concerns a critics view on specific projects. I don’t believe there’s a 100% proprietary or open-source rule place. It depends on what resources you need – user base, complexity and industry support – whether it viable to expect an open-source solution to reach a satisfying level. I just don’t believe there’s any common philosophy equalling FOSS with pirates.

I’m not against proprietary software, and use it when so appropriate, but I use a lot of open-source software (mainly on the Linux and BSD platform). Do I support the philosophy of pirates? In no way! I don’t own a single pirated song in my quite extensive music collection. The author decides how he/she wants to distribute the work, and it’s my obligation to respect that. Do I use any pirated software? Absolute no! But I support by donations open-source projects as well.

@Kimtjik:

I hate to disabuse you, but it isn’t an exaggeration to make a point: it’s my actual belief.

Did you somehow not notice the front page to this site?

That said, the argument doesn’t necessarily apply to users, like you. It applies to the philosophy. (This may be more obvious if you read the first paragraph again.)

The point is that FOSS advocacy routinely distinguishes between FreeAsInBeer™ and FreeAsInThought™, when there is no distinction whatsoever.

It’s not copyright infringement if the license the author puts the software on permits you to use it for free.

Therein lies a fundamental truism about some Winbreds – they aren’t against “piracy”, but rather against the ability for anyone to get software at no cost..

FOSS is even MORE annoying than piracy to this hidden ideology, because it goes against their common argument that software without direct payment can not exist.

DrLoser is a perfect example of one of these kinds of Winbreds. To be fair there are Winbreds don’t share the ideology, and you can see them arguing with each other all the time.

I should point out, to allay Kimtjik’s fears, that no sane person (nor I) can possibly object to people offering their work for free. Why they do it, I don’t know. It is their business.

If you actually take the time to read the goddamn title, however, this is not what I am arguing against.

The logical conclusion of Stallman’s rants is, indeed, that If I Cannot Steal It, It Should Not Exist.

What you do DrLoser, is to put Stallman & Co as the only representative of FOSS. Maybe that’s correct, since the FOSS term is debated by many who by others are tossed together as representing FOSS. To me there’s a huge difference between FSF and let’s say the Linux foundation, but maybe that’s something you agree with?

Okay. Point me at other representatives of FOSS.

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/, the Linux Foundation, is not remotely part of the FOSS ecosystem.

Have you noticed how often the Linux Foundation moans about appropriation and internal productisation of teh precious Kernel?

Oh, that’s right, they don’t. It’s set up to promote Torvld’s plaything (and presumably the not-insignificant number of people who make money out of it). It has nothing to do with FOSS whatsoever.

(And incidentally I have nothing against Linus. I’m impressed that he is so successful and I wish him well. But it’s time for you to respond to an actual argument and not throw around your normal sidetracking nonsense.

(I am a more reasonable, and even occasionally more polite, man than Joe Monco … scratch that, we are both equally reasonable … but just once in a while I like a discussion that operates in a linear basis, rather than a nonsense bit of trolling that totally ignores anything that came before.)

Incidentally, there’s a logical fallacy in my argument, right towards the end. It’s a logical fallacy that actually implies the possibility that FOSS might work.

See if you can spot it. I can wait.

Adam, why would people not want free software if it’s legal? You think people want to pay for web browsers these days?

FOSS, or Free and Open Source Software is a term that encompasses both the ideologies of the Free Software Foundation and the “pragmatic philosophy” like that of Open Source Initiative or Linux Foundation.

I don’t know administrator,

I’m still not entirely sure what DrLoser is whining about. The way I read this is he seems to want to want to correlate FOSS with piracy and people who use FOSS to pirates, because something about fiat currency. Can you perhaps figure out what his argument is and explain it to me?

So let’s dissect a DrLoser TM.

——-
There is no value to anything produced by mankind unless everybody can steal it. Physical property theft is, for some strange reason, abhorrent. Intellectual property theft is, for some equally strange reason, practically a crusade. [1]
——

This is what we call a “strawman”. Notice how the reference doesn’t actually point to anything concrete.

——
The problem here is that mankind has moved on, somewhat, from that Golden Era that never existed in the first place.
—-

The use of metaphor as a subject clause is a signature DrLoser argumentative tactic. In this case we see the DrLoser using “Golden Era” in such a manner. The core of what makes DrLoser incomprehensible are examples like this.

—-
We came up with barter, which was an uncomfortable method of exchange unless you’re really keen on carrying an ox on your back to the next village down the road.

Bad idea. So we came up with specie (gold, as an example, although there are many others). This sort of worked for about three thousand years, but it had certain defects. I mean, specie in and of itself is pretty much limited by how much specie you can produce. There’s a certain mismatch to reality.

Bad idea. And then, we came up with fiat currency! This is possibly the best way yet found to transmute Ricardo’s theories of comparative advantage into something that is actually Useful.
—-

Seems to be a history of currency and unrelated to to anything else.

—-
But, at the base of fiat currency, there is this one teeny tiny little promise.

I will (I hope) produce something that you will find valuable. The basis of fiat currency is that there is an exchange of value, and that you will (you hope) produce something that I will find valuable.
—-

He is starting to present an argument by presenting his opinion on what fiat currency means at some kind of philosophical level as fact.

—-
The basis of Free Open Source Software, on the other hand, is Theft. There is no exchange of value.

In this, it exactly mirrors the attitude of software pirates. And when I say mirrors, I mean that in a philosophical sense. Software pirates also mirror FOSS.

FreeAsInSpeech™ necessarily demands FreeAsInBeer™.
—-

The core of his argument. However the jump from the history of fiat currency to an opinion of its nature doesn’t have any clear relationship to this argument that I can see.

He’s right in a way. Many FOSS advocates really don’t care for the ideology, they just want to excuse their piracy. Funny how it tends to correlate exactly with the age that people are still in school and tapers off once these people start getting jobs.

So you are saying that pirates are FOSS advocates? Or FOSS advocates are pirates? Or that they share similar ideologies? I can agree with the third.

Yes, people end up getting too comfortable with the status quo as they age and get more fearful. They change their priorities to survival instead making the world a better place.

Wow Adam, I have to say I’m genuinely impressed. You can actually act like a smart person.

Can you please keep it up and stop with the trolling/sock-puppetry/name-calling/being an imbecile? Honestly, you’re just wasting everyone’s time (including your own), and encouraging them to continue their behavior.

I’m really serious. I thought about putting some snide remarks above, but resisted because it would sound like I’m mocking you.

The key difference between the Piracy Party and Free Culture groups is not so much the ideology but the methods.

Free Culture works within the context of the law and “philosophical” pirates do not. But the ideology is very similar. In neither case it’s all about “getting stuff for free” (although that is a big part of it).

The fact is they believe that the government enforced monopoly over culture called copyright no longer benefits the common man.

The belief is that if culture was free (and yes, movies, music, and games ARE part of our culture) more people could benefit from it both in consumption and in remixing and the world be a freer place with more creativity and progress abound. The book “Free Culture” goes into this in detail.

There is also the separate but related concern of anti-piracy enforcement. Which in most countries amounts to monitoring, censorship, defective-by-design products, and the suspension of trial by jury and other such things. This is the kind of stuff the EFF mostly focuses on fighting.

“Honestly, you’re just wasting everyone’s time (including your own), and encouraging them to continue their behavior.”

If they don’t listen and don’t be civil, I don’t bother being civil. If they listen, I am willing to be civil. But the instant DrLoser or DigitalAthiest comes up with some stupid argument or insult is the instant I generally stop giving a f|_|ck about arguing in any sane manner. That’s my modus operandi.

Free software loons are actually AGAINST software piracy, because piracy makes proprietary software more atrractive. For example, why i should donate 10€ to OpenShoot or KDEnlive, when i can buy a pirated (virus free) copy of Pinnacle Studio for 5€ from the neighborhood‘s warez shop? (post if you want a rapidshare)

Some softcore freetards may be in favor of software piracy, but hardcore freetards are always against it, because it harms the cause. At least that‘s the felling i got. Of course, even hardcore freetards they are in favor of movie and music piracy.

PS: Freeloaders like me are in favor of any kind of piracy. Saving money is cool.

@GESH

I read the “funding software with donations …“ article again and the comments about the software tax, and you know something, the software tax just became real! The EU paid Nokia 22 million for open sourcing Symbian ( http://bit.ly/csTWk5 ), which Nokia later closed. There is Stallman‘s wet dream coming true, aka government money spent on software projects nobody wants or asked for, and nobody asking the public if they want to fund such projects.

There is another reason to hate Stallman, he just put another burden in the back of taxpayers (much like any other leftard). Thanks to his “free software must be free“ religion gaining popularity, countries may start considering it their obligation to fund software development.

Also this is the European Union folks, turning Europe into a communist dictatorship, one step at a time. A country that‘s a member of the EU can only borrow from other EU countries (much like the Soviet Union), there are strict limits of how much a country can produce (much like the Soviet Union) and it‘s mandatory to participate in the funding of whatever silly pet projects the Union decides to fund (much like the Soviet Union). Oh, and if you vote for a government that says no once in a while, your country will be kicked out with all the consequences that means. Democracy, you said?

*“free software must be free“ = “all software must be free“

Do you think Adam King would want his software tax dollars going towards the building of sites like TM Repository?

If you FOSS’ed it, I would have no problem with you being on the government’s payroll to build it.

@kurkosdr

I hate to break it to you, but governments and academia have been funding FOSS development since software development first started, and they really never stopped.

This starts with your CERN-sponored WWW on the DARPA/NSF Internet.

@ADAM_KING

Sure, but not consumer orientiered software. They typically fund software intended for government use and backend stuff. In the same way governments fund the development of military vehicles and the development of new engine technologies but not civilian cars. Remember, the EU didn‘t only fund the Symbian kernel (which theoreticalky could find use in government technology and be OK in a way). They funded the whole thing, up to and including the UI and userland tools like the media player and the camera software. The cost would have been less if they funded only the kernel. But for some reason they funded the whole thing. Aka, public money thrown away for something that could have been done by a private corporation.

The whole situation where the EU funds a consumer orientiered mobile OS just to prevent a “foreign“ consumer orientiered mobile OS from dominating reminds me of how the Soviet Union funded civilian car development just to prevent foreign cars from dominating.

@Adam

Normally, I would ignore you. But as IMGX64 says, you present a good argument for once.

So let’s dissect it.

• Strawman? I believe it is convenient short-hand. I could list every single FSF campaign, link by link, but I chose to summarise.

• Golden Era: You have a point there. (Horors!) But in fact, the Golden Era to which I refer did, indeed, exist; albeit only in Stallman’s head. I was referring, incompetently, to the “Golden Era” in the MIT Labs just before all Richard’s pals left him in a broom-cupboard and went off to start companies.

• Yes, it’s an abbreviated history of the monetary system (not quite currency, although you’re close). What is it related to? [2]

• I could probably drone on for ages about Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage. I chose to summarise it in a paragraph. Do you hate me becoz I is terse?

• [2 here we come] What you choose to use is your own business. However, this “core of my argument” (which isn’t the core of my argument) is a bog-standard case of antithesis.

I’ve been known to write obscure, drunken, or even entirely unintelligible rants from time to time. This isn’t one of them.

I was actually impressed by your coherence, yet disturbed at the same time. You really do believe in this messianic bullshirt, don’t you?

Actually, Adam, I am so impressed by your rare, even solitary, descent into actual argument that I’m willing to bet you will be the first person to point out my logical fallacy, as mentioned above.

Do not let me down. (Hint: it’s an unwarranted assumption based on an unstated requirement.)

@kurkosdr

So governments don’t need UIs and cameras in their smartphones?

The US government very often fund things in the public interest (National Science Foundation & National Endowment for the Arts). It doesn’t always have to be for internal government use.

Soviet Union was a totally socialist country where the government owned the means of production. Funding operating systems is not equivlent.

I think it would make sense for a OS platform to be a public project. Much like how the Internet started and currently operates. Leave the apps to the private industry.

Besides, leaving something like an OS to a private company with profit motive and no extensive background checks/security clearance process on their employees can be dangerous to national security.

@Adam:

Oh, and thank you for reminding me. There’s no button on the Children With Cancer website for £20, so I got lazy and donated £25 instead. Here’s the details:

Thank you, your payment was successful
Merchant’s Reference: Donate online
WorldPay Transaction ID: 486377608

Now, I’m not expecting you to reciprocate in any monetary fashion (that would be CharityAsInBeer™), but it would be nice if you could bring yourself to smile at the next young person waving a charity bucket in your face and tell them “Not right now, but have a nice day!”

Ironically, and you’re not going to believe this, the top photo story on http://www.childrenwithcancer.org.uk/ is Hollie Evans, a leukemia sufferer with Down’s Syndrome.

I just can’t lose, can I? Unfortunately, Hollie just might. Give her a smile and wish her well.

But back to dreary, humdrum, analysis of text.

“Which [anti-Piracy laws] in most countries amounts to monitoring, censorship, defective-by-design products, and the suspension of trial by jury and other such things.”

Oh, really? Ignoring the catch-all, and concentrating on the third leg of this dubious tricolon, do you have any evidence for this suspension of trial by jury?

At least I had a [1].

Look up the E-PARASITE act.

[1]

I don’t agree with the Bill, Adam (it isn’t an Act yet), and I haven’t read all 79 pages of it, but I’d appreciate a reference to the point where it abolishes trial by jury.

@Kurkos:

Just to be even-handed. Adam is beating you hands down in logical argument for once (although he’s drifting a little, lately).

Are these really the words of a future bank executive?

“Also this is the European Union folks, turning Europe into a communist dictatorship, one step at a time. A country that‘s a member of the EU can only borrow from other EU countries (much like the Soviet Union), there are strict limits of how much a country can produce (much like the Soviet Union) and it‘s mandatory to participate in the funding of whatever silly pet projects the Union decides to fund (much like the Soviet Union). Oh, and if you vote for a government that says no once in a while, your country will be kicked out with all the consequences that means. Democracy, you said?”

What a load of toss. Every single proposition demonstrably wrong.

Here is an explanation:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111026/12130616523/protect-ip-renamed-e-parasites-act-would-create-great-firewall-america.shtml

——————————
Quoteth the article:
——————————
Any foreign site declared by the Attorney General to be “inducing” infringement, with a very broad definition of inducing, can now be censored by the US.

Previously such actions required a long and complex trial. This bill intends to “streamline” the process, by removing due process.

@DrLoser

Future bank executive? More like future systems maintainer.

@Kurkosdr
“Future bank executive? More like future systems maintainer.”

More like future patsy.

@Dear Adam
“This starts with your CERN-sponored WWW on the DARPA/NSF Internet.”

So, where is the public involvement? If you definition of the “public” means a few government-funded entities holding a couple of closed-door meetings and giving you the results afterwards, then you seriously need to work on it.

@Adam:

Begging your time for a little bit of throat-clearing: it’s still not an Act, and frankly I agree with the commenter who pointed out that it appears to be full of the sort of garbage clause that is designed to be removed in a “compromise” to pass the main bits.

In the event that it becomes an Act, I can’t see most of it’s provisions lasting beyond the first Supreme Court case, not least because of the First Amendment.

This …

“A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address.”

... is a open invitation to legal challenge. “Technically feasible and reasonable?” I’d say that puts the burden of proof right back where it belongs; on any ninny in the Attorney General’s Office who chooses to make a case under this legislation.

——

Throat-clearing aside, I absolutely agree with you [1] — it’s a ridiculous piece of legislation and should never have been proposed in the first place. May it die a fiery and humiliating death.

However, I still don’t see where the heinous “suspension of jury rights” comes in. Sure, it bypasses current process on the way in, but then not all cases that go through the US court system involve juries. Due process (ie the appeal system) has not been suspended. Indeed, it’ll probably be sped up: jury trials are long-winded and to an extent capricious, whereas I can see a well-funded appeal getting through the circuits to the SC in very short order.

I almost want this idiocy to be passed into law, just so I can see the look on the AG’s face when he’s forced to take action on it. I imagine that even in this debased age, the Attorney General of the United States has better things to do with his/her time.

——

[1] It was bound to happen sooner or later, wasn’t it?

I apologise for the errant greengrocer’s apostrophe, by the way.

@Adam:

Oh, and heartfelt thanks for actually providing an example and an attribution. This is so much unlike your usual “modus operandi” (as you put it) that I almost believe somebody else has hijacked your moniker.

But only almost.

“FOSS, or Free and Open Source Software is a term that encompasses both the ideologies of the Free Software Foundation and the 'pragmatic philosophy’ like that of Open Source Initiative or Linux Foundation.”

Absolutely no evidence for this whatsoever — not even a quote from the OSI or the LF. FOSS is FOSS. Not even Richard Stallman would say otherwise: in fact he’d be outraged at widening the term.

Apart from anything else, it’s the very opposite of 'pragmatic,’ isn’t it?

@El Monco:

“@Dear Adam —
This starts with your CERN-sponored WWW on the DARPA/NSF Internet.”

(and back to Joe)

“So, where is the public involvement? If you definition of the “public” means a few government-funded entities holding a couple of closed-door meetings and giving you the results afterwards, then you seriously need to work on it.”

What is wrong with simply pointing out that he is talking out of his backside?

Jeez. “DARPA/NSF and CERN,” indeed. What on earth does the one have to do with the other? Let alone the obvious fact that the WWW is a total accident, in Berners-Lee terms.

Never trust a man with a hyphen in his name, that’s what I say.

I don’t agree w/ the fanaticism of the FSF, but I disagree w/ the contention that FOSS is theft. FOSS only demands that the source code be made available to the user along with the executables. And who doesn’t know the gazillion #licenses out there that have their own idea of what open source is – ranging from GPL3 right down to ones from MS.

I support open source software – the OSI campaign, which is about a better s/w development model, w/o being ideological about it. I agree w/ Eric Raymond, the Debian guys and anyone who’s worked towards making this available at least to people who want it. Now, not everyone wants the sources along w/ the binaries, and in those cases, I’m fine w/ the people getting only the latter. And no, I don’t hold it against Google for not distributing Android sources.

On the question of whether FreeAsInSpeech necessarily implies or demands FreeAsInBeer, I agree that by insisting that downstream recipients cannot be stopped from distributing the software that they’ve either bought or been given, there is not much of a price one can charge due to the inability to prevent the same thing being simply given away later. On one hand, someone who pays, say $50 for a software, may or may not give it away 'gratis’ to one of his friends. But nonetheless, by forcibly preventing distributors from controlling what their downstream does, one does effectively cap the prices here. This is not the case w/ open source software, where one can put any restrictions regarding the distribution, so long as sources always accompany the binaries. All Open Source licenses ain’t necessarily free.

So essentially, Software Freedom forces one to allow what in the proprietary equivalent would be software piracy, while Open Source does nothing of that sort. So one can support Open Source w/o dumping on the idea of making money on software, the way one can’t w/ 'software freedom’.