/tech/ - Technology

Lolberts hate FOSS because it locks out opportunities for market solutions. Sure the rest of the logistics chain benifits, but only because of the sheer burden proprietary software has on the logistics chain. The moment some FOSS options compete with one of those entrepreneurs or small businesses they're done for.

>>25474
FOSS as presently constituted also requires IP law. Without IP law there is no mechanism to compel somebody to share their source code when they modify software released under a FOSS license. Remember that not all proprietary software is corporate: a closed-source program made by me right now, on which i hold the exclusive copyright and offer no conditions where re-sharing is allowed, would still be proprietary software.

>>25477
Yeah, but FOSS is using patent law to defeat software patent law to make sure the software stays in the public domain so anyone can use it.

>>25477
>Without IP law there is no mechanism to compel somebody to share their source code when they modify software released under a FOSS license.
Other than the suspiciousness distrubuting as such, and the awkwardness of making people have to reverse engineer it to make their desired modifications when you already have it. Like the only reason witholding source code was normal in the first place was copyright. Without copyright it's just being an asocial weirdo pretending to be a hacker.

>>25474
1. It's called libre software, "open source" is a corporate psyop.
2. It's not pro-market or anti-market, neither is it necessarily anti-capitalist either.
3. In practice it is communist since most of it are collaborative projects done for free for the immediate use by the contributors instead of for distribution.

>open source
stopped reading

>>25485
What is the difference between free open software and open source software?

>>25474
1. It's called libre software, "open source" is a corporate psyop.

No, Libre Software is Richard Stallman's personal views which many of us including myself don't fully agree with

>>25484
if it was communist there would be a centralized state in control of it commanding people work collectively.

In my opinion open source software is voluntary socialism but it has a free market aspect to it because users can make money and profit using open source software they own instead of depending on Adobe or Microsoft's centralized corporate cloud servers to make money.

free software doesn't care about the market one way or the other
>communism is when strong central government
OP please actually learn the meaning of words
>>25486
open source is a cucked version of free software designed to be corporate friendly, to allow enclosure and all manner of nasty user-unfriendly shit

>>25487
>Libre Software is Richard Stallman's personal views
It's a political approach to developimg software. It intersects with Stallman's views but it isn't about supporting Joe Biden or not using any proprietary software ever. Stallman never said this. Open Source is a castrated version of libre software, even Perens, the creator of the OSD, admits it and no longer supports it. It's not a matter of supporting Stallman, it's a matter of opposing the OSI and proprietary parasites who use the label "Open Source" for their own PR, and not everyone in the FSF even likes Stallman that much. I agree with him about 99% of the time.

That said, the terms are almost interchangeable really when the term "Open Source" is used correctly. But your software binaries should be DRM-free and blob-free to be considered "libre." That is all that's required.

>if it was communist there would be a centralized state
That's how I know you're an orange ancap, read theory plz. Communism is just marketless mutualism, there's no money involved in smaller projects except from outside donations, people make software for themselves, not for anyone else, they just put out their own work in hopes somebody else finds it useful or can help them develop it, not to sell it.

>>25486
>What is the difference between [open source] open software and open source software?
Practically nothing, you can use either. "Free" is just put here to emphasize that this software does indeed respect your freedom instead of just pretending to, although most people read it as "free of cost."

>>25505
TL;DR:

>>25477
thats already happening as most new FLOSS software is being released under apache/mit and BSD licenses anyway and the GPL has been fading in popularity for some time.

>>25477
>FOSS as presently constituted also requires IP law.
No, it doesn't. It's the other way around: the IP law requires FOSS to have a license. You see, if you do not provide a license, the "All Rights Reserved" license is applied automatically. As in, software without a license cannot possibly exist according to our retarded copyright laws unless you explicitly give your software into the public domain, which is not even recognized in some countries (that's why we have to use band-aids like CC0). The system is so utterly fucked.
>Without IP law there is no mechanism to compel somebody to share their source code when they modify software released under a FOSS license
If libre software will become dominant it will no longer be necessary since the only reason why people use proprietary software is its hegemony. Most computers use Windows, most people use Photoshop, most people use WhatsApp, etc., etc. Add to it the massive corporate lobbying and you get the idea.

>>25519
Tbh, trying to convince people to use more libre software is as hard as trying to convince people that Stirner was right. You know, because everyone else is stupid sheeple while I am a big-brained unspooked alpha. I'm so great, gonna kiss myself.

Try committing GNU/Jihad instead. Hack computers in your uni and install Gentoo, mwahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!!

>>25479
>>25523
it seems like wishful thinking to imagine that people would always upload the source in the absence of IP law. setting aside the small dev's love of control freakery, if you're gonna compile it to run on your own system, it's slightly less effort to throw up an executable than to throw up the source, and if you're gonna pick one, the end user almost always wants the former - especially since that's already the default, and especially if the executable takes up less storage than the source. once you take away the big reasons for making software proprietary, you still find a bunch of little cases where trying to get the source is an uphill battle. (in the interest of balance, sites like github seem like a countervailing factor for some: if you're gonna put it all online anyway…)

maybe someone should start a fringe movement to make all languages interpreted rather than compiled, so as to remove the advantages of sharing a compiled program without its uncompiled source. just send me the .bas bro.

>>25537
>it seems like wishful thinking to imagine that people would always upload the source in the absence of IP law
That doesn't happen with the IP law either lol. Putting GPL on software or not is the developer's own choice. The developers have a total freedom to not do that but they do that because they truly believe in software freedom, they are perfectly free, they just make a promise to their audience. Sure, without the copyright laws you can't enforce copyleft but copyleft is an alternative to the non-commegcial license anyway: if capitalism is truly destroyed then who would need a non-commercial license. Not to mention it would be perfectly legal to reverse-engineer everything, and if libre software becomes widespread there will be less incentive to support proprietary software since it won't have large capital behind it.

>>25546
>Putting GPL on software or not is the developer's own choice.
If you make a derivative of a GPL program it's a license obligation that you re-share the code, not your "own choice". theoretically, not throwing up the source puts you at risk of being sued. no risk of being sued, open season on not re-sharing.

>>25549
>If you make a derivative
OHHHHHH THE POOR DERIVATIVE DEVELOPERS. Their freedom to derive is DEFINITELY not taken away if the original software is proprietary, yeah, that's real freedom. Freedom to not give freedom to anyone else. Freedom to be a despot.

My point still stands: the decision to put GPL is a freedom, the decision to make a derivative from a GPL program is freedom, the decision to put an Apache license is also freedom, none of these licenses can be easily yanked away, you can't suddenly "change your mind" about a certain piece of code being Apache-licensed, no more than you can change your mind on GPL. Copyleft is made primarily to guarantee that the software will stay free, the fucked-up nature of the copyright system is none of its fucking business. It's a non-disclosure agreement in reverse basIcally: you agree to disclose everything. It just so happens that the stupid copyright laws break compatibiliy with everything else. And we can do nothing about it, sorry. Perhaps you can do us a favor and destroy copyright laws.

>>25549
>Freedom ain't free
Actual porky FUD repeated on leftypol of all places. $0.02 has been credited towards your Windows subscription.

>>25551
your first line is arguing against something that absolutely nobody has said: the problem is, to repeat myself: in the absence of a mechanism to compel them not to be a despot, they are free to be a despot in ways which they currently are not. destroy copyright laws and there's absolutely zero mechanism to force you to re-share the source of a modified GPL program, the GPL stops having all legal force just as much as a standard proprietary licence does. "you may not share this program" and "you may only re-share this program if…" - boom, both gone, it's public domain now baby.

>>25576
you, too, are arguing against a point nobody has made.
let me restate the point: at the moment, if i make a derivative of a GPL'd program, and i upload an executable, i am obliged to upload the source including my modifications so that others can furher modify it - this was the condition on which the copyright holder allowed me to modify the program. abolish copyright and this condition no longer applies, at which point it is easier for me to simply be lazy and not share it.

>>25505
But people can profit off the content the software produces such as making money using GIMP, Krita or Blender. Or running a company where workers use that software or a worker co op where workers run the company and use FOSS

FOSS has a free market anti capitalist component that cannot be ignored. Its not communst

>>25505
But people can profit off the content the software produces such as making money using GIMP, Krita or Blender. Or running a company where workers use that software or a worker co op where workers run the company and use FOSS

FOSS has a free market anti capitalist component that cannot be ignored. Its not communst

>>25578
>>25579
What's quite funny is that Stallman himself argued this a fair bit, but people here really want to synthesize their /g/-derived free software ideology with their communist ideology and wind up with "software communism", mostly regarded by pure free-software advocates as a slur.

>Now, how does free software…well, I can tell you about how free software relates to our society. A secondary topic that might be of interest to some of you is how free software relates to business. Now, in fact, free software is tremendously useful for business. After all, most businesses in the advanced countries use software. Only a tiny fraction of them develop software.
>And free software is tremendously advantageous for any company that uses software, because it means that you're in control. Basically, free software means the users are in control of what the program does. Either individually, if they care enough to be, or, collectively, when they care enough to be. Whoever cares enough can exert some influence. If you don't care, you don't buy. Then you use what other people prefer. But, if you do care, then you have some say. With proprietary software, you have essentially no say.
>With free software, you can change what you want to change. And it doesn't matter that there are no programmers in your company; that's fine. You know, if you wanted to move the walls in your building, you don't have to be a carpentry company. You just have to be able to go find a carpenter and say, “What will you charge to do this job?” And if you want to change around the software you use, you don't have to be a programming company. You just have to go to a programming company and say, “What will you charge to implement these features? And when will you have it done?” And if they don't do the job, you can go find somebody else.

>There's a free market for support. So, any business that cares about support will find a tremendous advantage in free software. With proprietary software, support is a monopoly, because one company has the source code, or maybe a small number of companies that paid a gigantic amount of money have the source code, if it's Microsoft's shared source program, but, it's very few. And so, there aren't very many possible sources of support for you. And that means, that unless you're a real giant, they don't care about you. Your company is not important enough for them to care if they lose your business, or what happens. Once you're using the program, they figure you're locked in to getting the support from them, because to switch to a different program is a gigantic job. So, you end up with things like paying for the privilege of reporting a bug. [Laughter] And once you've paid, they tell you, “Well, OK, we've noted your bug report. And in a few months, you can buy an upgrade, and you can see if we've fixed it.” [Laughter]
>Support providers for free software can't get away with that. They have to please the customers. Of course, you can get a lot of good support gratis. You post your problem on the Internet. You may get an answer the next day. But that's not guaranteed, of course. If you want to be confident, you better make an arrangement with a company and pay them. And this is, of course, one of the ways that free software business works.

….
>So, I've talked about how free software affects most business. But how does it affect that particular narrow area which is software business? Well, the answer is mostly not at all. And the reason is that 90% of the software industry, from what I'm told, is development of custom software, software that's not meant to be released at all. For custom software, this issue, or the ethical issue of free or proprietary, doesn't arise. You see, the issue is, are you users free to change, and redistribute, the software? If there's only one user, and that user owns the rights, there's no problem. That user is free to do all these things. So, in effect, any custom program that was developed by one company for use in-house is free software, as long as they have the sense to insist on getting the source code and all the rights.
…
>But, as it happens, there is free software business. There are free software companies, and at the press conference that I'm going to have, people from a couple of them will join us. And, of course, there are also companies which are not free software businesses but do develop useful pieces of free software to release, and the free software that they produce is substantial.

>Now, how do free software businesses work? Well, some of them sell copies. You know, you're free to copy it but they can still sell thousands of copies a month. And others sell support and various kinds of services. I, personally, for the second half of the '80's, I sold free software support services. Basically I said, for $200 an hour, I'll change whatever you want me to change in GNU software that I'd written. And, yes, it was a stiff rate, but if it was a program that I was the author of, people would figure that I might get the job done in a lot fewer hours. [Laughter] And I made a living that way. In fact, I'd made more than I'd ever made before. I also taught classes. And I kept doing that until 1990, when I got a big prize and I didn't have to do it any more.
>But, 1990 was when the first corporation free software business was formed, which was Cygnus Support. And their business was to do, essentially, the same kind of thing that I'd been doing. I certainly could have worked for them, if I had needed to do that. Since I didn't need to, I felt it was good for the movement if I remained independent of any one company. That way, I could say good and bad things about the various free software and nonfree software companies, without a conflict of interest. I felt that I could serve the movement more. But, if I had needed that to make a living, sure, I would have worked for them. It's an ethical business to be in. No reason I would have felt ashamed to take a job with them. And that company was profitable in its first year. It was formed with very little capital, just the money its three founders had. And it kept growing every year and being profitable every year until they got greedy, and looked for outside investors, and then they messed things up. But it was several years of success, before they got greedy.
…
>People used to say we could never do a complete free operating system. Now we've done that and a tremendous amount more. And I would say that we're about an order of magnitude away from developing all the general purpose published software needs of the world. And this is in a world where more than 90% of the users don't use our free software yet. This is in a world where, although in certain areas of business, you know, more than half of all the web servers in the world are running on GNU/Linux with Apache as the web server.

>>25579
>But people can profit off the content the software produces
Wow, no shit. Did I say they can't? Anyway, that's outside the domain of software development, the development itself is outside the market just as much as you having a conversation with your friends isn't a monetary transaction despite your friends having jobs. Or what, you pay your friends to talk to you? Maybe they're only pretending to be your friends…

>>25579
People can profit off the items the hardware, such as hammers, produce such as making money with carpentry, canning or powderizing minerals and herbs. Or running a company where workers use those hammers or a worker co op where workers run the company and use hammers.

Hammers have a free market anti capitalist component that cannot be ignored. Its not communst.

>>25580
>people here really want to synthesize their /g/-derived free software ideology with their communist ideology
…No???

1. I'm an anarcho-egoist, not a communist.
2. I'm just pointing out mutual aid relations within libre software development, not claiming that all libre software development is communist. Some of it is sponsored by a private business. Some of it is sponsored by non-profits like the GNU Project.

>pure free-software advocates
Even "pure" free software advocates have some political opinions of their own. They can be communists, market socialists, socdems, anarchists, egoists, ancaps, lolberts, libfems, conservatives, alt-rightists, centrists, whatever. Libre software isn't anti-communist, it isn't pro-communist, it is acommunist, your opinions on government structure and economics are less relevant to libre software unless they go in conflict with its goal of user freedom, don't be a delusional gatekeeper plz.
>slur
If you think "communism" is a slur then wth are you doing on this website?

>>25607
I lol'd.

OP here, I don't know if my political views are left wing or right wing I Just want to know how to prevent this kind of world

>>25607
OP here, yes any physical object can be given that attribute but FOSS is something special because it forces "capitalism" to stay decentralized. When capitalist is decentralized people get the best out of it without any of the yucky stuff.

When capitalism is decentralized and free from state protectionism I no longer consider it capitalism and prefer the term "markets". markets can be practed with both a boss or worker co-ops. its a free will choice of whoever voluntarily participates.


Communism is problematic because without money, banks or credit I don't know how a society would function, it makes my head hurt just thinking about it. But if you can figure out a way you should be free to voluntarily practice communism

>>25505
>That's how I know you're an orange ancap, read theory plz. Communism is just marketless mutualism, there's no money involved in smaller projects except from outside donations, people make software for themselves, not for anyone else, they just put out their own work in hopes somebody else finds it useful or can help them develop it, not to sell it.


yes, I am an "orange an cap" because I see evidence that whenever communism is practiced it turns into a centralized state. Right Libertarians like Mike Rectenwald, Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul are right in my opinion about communism always turning into a centralized blood bath terror but wrong about capitalism being its solution.

Individual liberty, markets and property rights exist better in a anti capitalist frame work.

The FOSS movement is majorly libertarian, no big surprise there.