Welcome,
The creation of a Free Software Foundation Europe is an excellent opportunity to clarify the distinctions between the FSF(E) and GNU. This first requires that their foci be slightly shifted.
My interests are in the epistemic development of humanity through the principal tenet of sharing informationally valuable software. Software is any representation of information that loses no inherent worth upon transmission between media (i.e., necessarily digital), and currently includes software programs, software music, software books, software art and perhaps eventually software brains and who knows what else. This is a grand and vague concern, and one I believe should also be that of the FSF(E).
Of those software types, GNU is concerned with improving the epistemelogical value of software programs, specifically system software, by ensuring the source code can form a mutable model in the user's mind, enrich and be enriched by whatever else is in there, and then be freely transmitted to other users.
However the need for Unix-type system software is transient. The GPL is already faced with painful contortions. I would cheerfully allow the death of GNU and the GPL if they began choking on, respectively, irrelevance and complexity. They could then be replaced by more appropriate, though equally transient, tools, and joined by sister organisations devoted to improving the value of the other software types. It's the many small tanks principle (with apologies to Alessandro).
Jumping back to definitions of words -- the ebb and flow of a language is notoriously unpredicatble: either 'software' will come to be accepted using roughly the definition above due to its increasingly similar mode of transport and need for interpretation or else the term will die. My best recomendation resulting from this is that, pending the whims of fate, you adopt RMS-style exactness over the word, always qualifying it as one of the aformentioned subtypes, or preferably the infinitely better terms you will duly conceive.
In summary:
o The firm philosophical stance Georg wishes from FSFE members ought to be concerned with high, broad and long aims for humanity, and encompass more than software programs.
o Encourage the creation of GNU sisters, under that broad philosophical umbrella of FSF(E), for music, books, video, and whatever else is webbable.
o Keep implementation details like the GPL out of FSF(E).
o For reasons I hope I've made clear, don't have a gnu on the FSFE logo.
(Abstraction, modularisation, encapsulation. Whaddya know, those software engineering classes did come in handy :-)
David
"David" dbFSF@pigstick.freeserve.co.uk writes:
o The firm philosophical stance Georg wishes from FSFE members ought to be concerned with high, broad and long aims for humanity, and encompass more than software programs.
It's certainly a worthwhile task to promote the issue of freedom whereever is appropriate, and we should try to do so. But let's remember that the Free Software Foundation's primary interest is to eliminate restrictions on copying, understanding and modifying software. And in particular, the FSF does this by developing the GNU System.
If at some point it is appropriate to widen the goals of the Free Software Foundation, I would be most happy to support this, but that's a discussion that is best taken with RMS and others in the FSF. The FSFE must try to follow the same founding principles as the FSF. Personally, I think that expanding the area that we focus on is premature and that there exists other organisations that are more efficient and more suitable to deal with them at this time.
As I said earlier though, we should definitely support such activities, and the FSF makes a point out of linking and in other ways supporting free music, free books and everything else where the freedom associated with it is similar in philosophy to that of the freedom of software which we advocate.
In summary:
o The firm philosophical stance Georg wishes from FSFE members ought to be concerned with high, broad and long aims for humanity, and encompass more than software programs.
To what extent? To the extent of all things 'digital'? To the extent of information, content, etc? Or beyond that?
o Encourage the creation of GNU sisters, under that broad philosophical umbrella of FSF(E), for music, books, video, and whatever else is webbable.
I think all that helps to do is muddy the waters a bit, really. Obviously, FSFers are always going to have their own opinions, and most of the time these opinions are probably going to be anti-patent, anti-this and anti-that. I think the importance of Free Software is much greater than that of Free Music, for example, and needs a separate emphasis.
o Keep implementation details like the GPL out of FSF(E).
I would argue stuff like the GPL is the ultimate expression of the philosophy, and is very much the most important tenet ;)) Since the GPL is the 'action' end of what the FSF does, it has to be the 'master template' for the philosophy, in a way, actions speak louder than words, yadda yadda :)
o For reasons I hope I've made clear, don't have a gnu on the FSFE logo.
I'm sure a lot of people would agree that the need for Free Software is not equal to the need for a Free Unix. But, Free Unix is where things are at right now, and you have to think about now as well as the future. By concentrating on Free (not :) Unix, i.e. GNU, we're delivering on our promises in the short term but not cutting off what can happen in the long term.
Interesting thoughts though ;)
Cheers,
Alex.
Alex Hudson wrote:
I think all that helps to do is muddy the waters a bit, really. Obviously, FSFers are always going to have their own opinions, and most of the time these opinions are probably going to be anti-patent, anti-this and anti-that. I think the importance of Free Software is much greater than that of Free Music, for example, and needs a separate emphasis.
If I can take this as embodying the main gripes against my ideas, I shall attempt to respond. If the idea of separating FSF and GNU creates confusion then I'm sure it was my ineloquence and not a quality of the concept.
Firstly, the greater philosophy is absolutely not anti-anything. It's just pro- ideals that I find slightly harder to pinpoint. Nextly, the FSF could switch to being a homemade ice cream dispensary tomorrow with no detrimental effect, as it's presently nothing more than a GNU mirror. And to extend my analogy to program design, a change during testing will cost 100 times more than a change during design, so please leave the confusing gnu off the logo, keep the mortal GPL out of it, and acknowledge eternal goals we can promote now rather than when the need appears most pressing. Does that analogy really apply here? I've no idea. But what is there to lose?
Now is the time when valuable information (which I will persist in calling software) has become expressible in almost identical forms, so now is the time those against software liberation on the incidentally-opposed grounds of profit will spread the meme of an intrinsic difference between software types. A divide and conquor plan that gets the FSF's tacit support because "other groups are better able to deal with it."
Regarding the much slated notion of free music, until I thought about it properly just now I would have largely agreed (I only included it to make the list longer ;-). But then I don't know much about music, or how psychoacoustics relate to cognition and emotion, nor the many possibly ingenious ideas to improve its inherent value. A GNU sister* concerned with music would want to know these things, and could then promote 'goodness' in music. The GPL would not be an applicable tool here, though a similarly spirited document might be. It is this spirit, not the details, which should concern FSF(E).
IMO, you have to stop thinking as programmers, or at least recognise that as more appropriate to GNU. A serious deficiency in free software as it stands is its lack of use in science. Tell a scientist he should liberate his software so other people can perhaps use it and fix bugs and he'll dismiss it as a trifling detail. On the other hand, present a cogent argument that libre software is a valid step to universal enlightenment and he'll embrace you as a brother. (The fact I evidently cannot make this argument doesn't preclude its existence. And don't laugh at my naivete of scientists' motives, that's my best quality.)
Jonas wrote: "As I said earlier though, we should definitely support such activities, and the FSF makes a point out of linking and in other ways supporting free music, free books and everything else where the freedom associated with it is similar in philosophy to that of the freedom of software which we advocate."
Seems the simplest thing in the world to support GNU by linking and other ways, instead of the present situation of being GNU. On top of everything, I just noticed that separating FSF-GNU is bound to reduce the time wasted belabouring the difference between Free Software and Open Source.
Fooey, suppose I'll draft an email to Stallman. All my ramblings were on the premise that anyone else intuitively believes liberating software of all forms can profoundly benefit human development, rather than just being a cool thing for program hackers.
* I propose Rab Ain't Bertelsmann, with a Robert Burns' face logo.
David
Hi.
Firstly, the greater philosophy is absolutely not anti-anything. It's just pro- ideals that I find slightly harder to pinpoint.
Ok, agreed.
[...] It is this spirit, not the details, which should concern FSF(E).
Fine. However, you must focus on something and avoid trying to cover everything (and be unable to do anything real). And the issues related to different fields are pretty different, and must be dealt with by people versed in the specific area.
Also, I still think software is different, and more important to citizens at large than other fields are.
Why is software different? Because software is shaping our lives. Our documents are locked by the software that creates them (think about ".doc": too many people can't recover their ideas unless they have that specific program), our money is managed by software, our factories are governed by software.
Freedom to distribute music and (better) books is important, but it doesn't shape our lives. Books don't control our work and our stuff; sofware does. Publishing houses don't force us to re-buy the same books over and over; software houses try to do that, and often manage to. Sure I know that music companies are very bad mates when you are an author, but people at large is not affected (I know I may be naive in these points, but it's not my field).
IMO, you have to stop thinking as programmers, or at least recognise that as more appropriate to GNU.
You talk about separating FSF and GNU. But they are already different things: one is an organization and the other is a project. The organization sponsors the project, but nothing prevents it from sponsoring another (software) project in the future (ok, this was trivial, sorry about that).
Jonas wrote: "As I said earlier though, we should definitely support such activities, and the FSF makes a point out of linking and in other ways supporting free music, free books and everything else where the freedom associated with it is similar in philosophy to that of the freedom of software which we advocate."
As you may imagine, I agree wholeheartedly.
/alessandro