Hi,
whether someone talks about Free Software or Open Source is not a good
indicator of where on this political spectrum they fall.
Well, a person can 'talk about' socialism and about 'the right'from any perspective, for sure.
But what a person chooses for themselves I think does tend to regulate the WAY they talk about those things, and WHAT they say about them too.
A centrist position, is not the same as a neutral position.
It's possible to hold socialist or right-wing positions without insisting people think the same way.
Counterwise, it's possible to hold out a centrist position in a rhetorical way, perhaps to try and convince other people, or other people within the FSFE ought to think the same way.
The problem with silencing the debate on the demarcation between Open Source and Free/Libre is that it camouflages what can be a non-neutral centrist politics which tends to invite corporate involvement that may not be, strictly speaking coterminous with thinking in Free Software circles.
The difference between incentives to produce either Open Source or Free/Libre ought to be enough to remind us that the cultures informing those ideas are very different, as perhaps are the outcomes in many cases.
The FSFE ought I think to be unequivocally on the side of Free Software, and I think it is.
The possible weakening of this is when we start to see Open Source as being part of the same movement, which it might be or it may not be.
The point is, it is possible to easily identify Free Software because it will have certain features that other development paradigms don't offer.
The problem with 'Open Source' is that is may also be Free, but it may also be proprietary, and that should tell us all we need to know about the problems with thinking Open Source is in the same family as Free/Libre.
In a similar way, a cuckoo is a bird, just like a warbler - but it seems to me that Open Source is very much like the cuckoo in the warblers nest of free software, it seems to benefit from all the positive benefits from being part of a happy family, but it can outgrow it's siblings and exhaust the parents and in any case, it's a very different bird when it hatches?
People that promote Free Software know about what that means, people that promote Open Source may or may not, so whereas a Free Software advocate is obviously committed to (at the very least) ideas of communitarian living, an Open Source advocate is likely to be either 1) Confused; 2) Pro-business - which at the very least means pro-capitalism and centrist or right of center on the political spectrum; 3) Both confused and pro-business
This much at least I think we can say, so as a rule of thumb the critique of political allegiances between the two seems useful, at least on a broad/macro scale of social analysis.
/ mat
Hi Mat,
an Open Source advocate is likely to be either 1) Confused
I would ask that we do NOT label anyone, neither Free Software or Open Source advocates as "confused". This is absolutely not consistent with the FSFE's view. It implies a moral superiority which isn't a view we'd be happy to project.
On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 12:45:48PM +0000, Mat Witts wrote:
People that promote Free Software know about what that means, people that promote Open Source may or may not, so whereas a Free Software advocate is obviously committed to (at the very least) ideas of communitarian living, an Open Source advocate is likely to be either 1) Confused; 2) Pro-business - which at the very least means pro-capitalism and centrist or right of center on the political spectrum; 3) Both confused and pro-business
You are projecting your own political beliefs onto everyone in the Free Software movement. My preferred term is Free Software because I believe individual freedom to be the highest political goal or utility and Free Software safeguards every individual's freedom and control over their devices. I have no communitarian leanings beyond recognizing that cooperating in communities is a valid exercise of any individual's freedom of association, and I am decidedly pro-business as a valid exercise of individual freedom too.
The Free Software definition says nothing about the way Free Software should be developed. The definition is not pro-communitarian or anti-business, and hence any movement based on promoting the definition is not pro-communitarian or anti-business either or it has already failed.
While I prefer the term Free Software, I also recognize that in the vast majority of cases contributions from people whose preferred term is Open Source also lead to increased individual choice and control over their device. This is true of contributions from large corporations too, and where any particular user disagrees with the corporation's direction, they are free to fork the project. Less complaining and more use of the four freedoms would be entirely appropriate in such cases.