Stallman believes that you should vote with your feet and avoid using non-free software, and that if we all did this for everything there would be no space for non-free software in the market.

That doesn't mean that you can't sell software. The FSF has always sold copies of their software (I know because I've bought some). All of their licenses allow you to sell software, they consider any license that doesn't allow this to be non-free.

And this falls under the mantle of "consumer protection" how? Maybe a world with no non-free software would be better for me personally, or maybe it wouldn't (I think it probably wouldn't), but trying to create a world in which a particular product category doesn't exist doesn't exist isn't consumer protection.

[Silly counterexamples include: flamethrowing baby-cribs. Fine, abolishing flamethrowing baby cribs does count as consumer protection.]

There are similar movements that advocate boycotting e.g. out of season fruit, or goods manufactured by oppressive countries.

  Because doing so creates a bigger market for free programs,
  and reduces the market for proprietary ones.

> You have a choice between deserving a reward and not getting a material reward, and getting one but not deserving it.

I think that RMS sees our current society as intrinsically flawed with regard to how it is that we reward people for their good and hard work (and the behavior patterns associated with that work). It is not that he lives in a world where no one has to make any money.

He is a tremendous hacker and has analyzed the system. He has come to the conclusion that the system in which we live is flawed. The way that you (generally) make money is by hurting other people.

Free software is based on the idea that we should change what behavior we reward. The idea being that proprietary software inhibits freedom of a computer literate (programming literate) person. We should not reward this behavior.

'Making money is evil' is a tremendous oversimplification of the philosophy. If everyone adopted the free software maxim of not using proprietary software, it would be inevitable that society would become extremely computer literate, and/or we would develop a way of compensating people for working on free software projects.

This might be putting the cart before the horse, however. What is really needed is a way to reward people handsomely for working on free software projects. Then it would slowly become a norm to have access to the source code, and society (maybe) follow.

I guess it depends on what exactly you mean by 'society' but:

The view that society would become computer literate is incredibly naive. People have limited time and want to focus on things they enjoy.

See: every other thing in life that is already free. Like your car, your bicycle, your front lawn, your kitchen cabinetry, and what you eat for lunch tomorrow.

People want things to work, and they want them to look nice. They generally want no hand in doing so to the point where they are considered literate on the subject. This is why fast/frozen food is popular, and most people take their car to a mechanic to change their brakes.

Life is full of too many things to become literate at everything in life. On the whole, computers are no different than any other object in life. Most people just want them to work, just like I just want my car's brakes to slow my car down.

Almost every freedom you enjoy came as an economic incentive first.

This is also an oversimplification, but implementing shit without understanding the impact on society historically has led to disaster.

Saying that it would be better if the world did X or Y is very shortsighted without having stats to back your claims ... especially without first demonstrating a sustainable economic model that can survive X or Y (like selling shit and receiving money for it).

More likely would be that software development would be a true commodity OR software would evolve to make Free Software irrelevant.

And it is already happening.

Every interesting application that happened in the last 5 to 10 years is a web application. Web applications are services, not products ... with web apps, people aren't having access to the binary of that application and it doesn't even run on their machines anymore (with the possible exception of distributed systems, like Bittorrent ... but you can see how well Chandler worked out and compare it with the Google Apps).

bad_user,

I'm sorry, I am not quite understanding your definition of 'almost every freedom'. There are plenty of freedoms that I enjoy which are not economically driven. Freedom of religion, freedom to assemble, right to bear arms, freedom of the press, etc, etc.

I mean, are we talking fundamental freedoms?

RMS sees the ability to hack your own system as a fundamental freedom. Computer as an extension of your mind/person. It would be like me telling you that you are not allowed think certain thoughts.

I don't disagree that there is no data to prove that free software would do this, but then again, how exactly are you going to get economic statistics and test cases without going ahead and trying to do it? I also don't disagree that RMS is taking the wrong approach in not having a sustainable economic model for free software (I think I explicitly stated that, in fact).

I see no reason why a web app would not be viable GPL (or massively distributed for that matter). HTML, Javascript and CSS are prime examples of successful open platforms. HTML is so easy to learn because you can take any web page and look at the source. The real secret sauce in something like Facebook is the huge number of users. You have to be on Facebook because all of your friends are on Facebook. Posting some code to the internet wouldn't instantly remove their real advantage. (Similar could be said of something like gmail).

I like the mind analogy, it is sufficiently weird.

Lets say my friend Phil and his pet Demon have the technology to implant a calculus subroutine in your brain.

It is a little buggy, but overall it works pretty well, sometimes it will get the wrong answers, but it is about 80% there (the marketing brochure, however makes it sound like it is 100% accurate).

It is perfectly (and easily) within their ability to give me the ability to introspect the subroutine so that I can safely fix any bugs that I find.

But they do not, because then I would know how it works! I could potentially duplicate it elsewhere.

They in fact go to disproportionate lengths to make sure that the particular subroutine is a complete black box. They encrypt it and use a Vulcan mind-meld to wall it off from me.

For a while they push updates, to that corner of my mind, but eventually they go on to greener pastures (they get jobs as consultants or win big in the VC lottery), and I am left with a buggy, 85% understanding of calculus.

If we take the idea that the computer is an extension of the mind seriously, any sort of proprietary software is extremely anti-social behavior. If I create proprietary software and allow people to install it, I am cutting them off from little pieces of understanding and knowledge that they could otherwise have.

It is even worse if it doesn't work properly and I 'hang them out to dry' once they depend on it (i.e. stop fixing bugs).

I didn't come in here to argue that RMS is right, but there does seem to be some sort of moral or ethical issue behind this that is far beyond RMS getting upset that someone else is able to make money with his code. I suspect that he could make quite a bit of money not being the 'free software' guy, if it were mere jealousy.

For me, the issue comes down to my own rights as a developer. If I sell an application with no source, nobody has a right to:

1) copy it freely to their friends 2) get my source

RMS gladly sacrifices the rights of a developer for the rights of a user and I just can't agree.

"If we take the idea that the computer is an extension of the mind seriously, any sort of proprietary software is extremely anti-social behavior. If I create proprietary software and allow people to install it, I am cutting them off from little pieces of understanding and knowledge that they could otherwise have."

The computer isn't an extension of the mind. It's just a tool.

"It is even worse if it doesn't work properly and I 'hang them out to dry' once they depend on it (i.e. stop fixing bugs)."

If that's the case, move onto another application. It's obviously working to some degree if you are using it. Even changes in operating systems won't suddenly make an application stop working (you can continue to use the old OS until you change to a new application).

Open source won't save you from this scenario. Open source developers stop fixing bugs all the time. I can't tell you how many abandoned projects I've seen on Sourceforge or Freshmeat. Sure, you could hire a developer to make changes..but you either have to:

1) hire a contractor (it's not easy to find a contractor that can get familiar with the code you need or is competent enough to get the job done in a timely fashion. This wastes lots of time and money (I know, I've been there).

2) Hire a full-time employee. So now, instead of paying a company $1000/year for bug fixes/updates, you need to pay a full-time developer 10X more.

3) wait for someone to pick the project up. This happens, but since most open source projects are a hobby for the developer, major bugs that you need fixed aren't a priority when the developer needs to pay the rent.

Some companies based on open source do offer support. But it's just as expensive as any other company. So it really offers no benefit.

Either way, Stallman, the pirates, and the zealots have pushed me away from selling software. This is mostly because many of the people from all of these communities feel entitled to my proprietary work. Over time, this is going to make it difficult for anyone to sell software (because everyone is going to just share it for free..and not care). So, all of my software ideas are now web service ideas. This is where software is headed. So now instead of paying a one-time fee (which is what I was going to do originally), you will be paying a monthy/yearly fee to use software (and you won't get anything even close to the source).

I assume you think that the existence of Google has led to other good things, but I don't see any reason to believe that the people at Google are doing better or more valuable work there than they would be if Google didn't exist.

The best people, an already massive and growing infrastructure, and a proven-successful platform are all things that can't be readily duplicated.

In this situation, monopolies like Google and Microsoft probably wouldn't exist at all. I think search is an excellent example, actually, of something that is required for the proper functioning of the web. It is practically a public good. If we found out Google were biasing its search results, it would be a very big deal (but how do you know it isn't?). If it were open source, we would know.

I guess the question then is 'who pays for the hardware to run open source Google,' and that is a good question, to which I do not know the answer, but seeing as anyone can download the software, it seems anyone could.

I completely disagree. He has certain values and political goals which he believes very strongly in -- and espouses them aggressively. This is true for all of us. I personally disagree with him (I am willing to give up some of my freedom for money), but I would never say that that diminishes his accomplishments and contributions.

Proprietary vendors can do things to prevent a suitable alternative from existing, but that's a separate consideration from whether or not you're freer for choosing one way or the other.

With proprietary software, you absolutely give up that ability.

So yes, you do always give up the freedom. The counterpoint, though, is that if you were never to exercise the freedom, it has no value. So even though you've given up a freedom to use a proprietary solution, if you never encounter a case where you want/need to exercise that freedom, it hasn't really hurt you. That may be more what you are getting at?

Working on it though. :)

Tax software can and should be released by the state under a free license. But when the state fails to do its duty, the community do the job.

In Brazil, FSF Latin America releases free software for filing tax returns, and this year managed to release the free program before the state released its nonfree program. So don't say it's impossible.

I don't like to talk about "consumption" of these programs because that term adopts the narrow mindset of economics. It tends to judge everything only in terms of practical costs and benefits and doesn't value freedom.

The reason I don't use nonfree software is that it would take away my freedom. I don't want to let that happen. So I don't consider installing nonfree program, even as an possible option. I treat them as poison. I hope that you will too.

I don't know whether our community will make a "high end video game" which is free software, but I am sure that if you try, you can stretch your taste for games so that you will enjoy the free games that we have developed.

If you want to maximize the freedom values, than you would trade X values for that freedom values, often controls over other people.

Did you even read the article? He says it's ok to make money with free software and should be advertised:

"When you meet people who think free software is supposed to be gratis, tell them "It's free as in freedom; it doesn't have to be gratis." Then refer them to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html, and you should be able to educate them with very little effort on your part. When you get practiced in doing this and you see how easy it is, you won't feel annoyed when the need arised."

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Why is it that so many people believe they have a God-given right to make money by doing a certain activity? I see this same thinking all the time in arguments about the future of newspapers. Programmers are generally smart people. I'm sure most of them could find a way to make money if everyone stopped buying proprietary software.

You do not have the right to succeed.

The main effort of making a car is still making the car. Just because you can download recipes or a CAD drawing of a car chefs or car makers aren't going to go out of business. They provide a valuable service that people want to buy.

Similarly, programs aren't going to write themselves. There's always going to be demand for skilled programmers, just like there's demand for skilled carpenters.

A lot of people are doing this sort of thing already, so you can make a living off it.

WTF are you talking about?

Are you saying that all these nights I'm not sleeping, working 14 hours per day, not spending time with my family ... don't have a cost?

Is this not manufacturing?

> under a free software model you'd have to make money by continuing to make improved versions under contract, or offering support, hosting or other things like that

Yeah, that's called consulting or selling complementary products that are proprietary.

It sucks.

I prefer to exercise my freedoms that I have in the quasi free market I'm operating in and decide for myself how I want to sell my work.

No. Note that this whole conversation started with a car analogy, under that analogy writing software would be designing a car, not manufacturing it. In software manufacturing is distribution, which carries virtually no cost.

Of course making software would still have a cost.

> I prefer to exercise my freedoms [...] to sell my work.

More power to you then. Note that I never said that I agreed with Stallman.

I've was just responding to the fallacy in chc's post where he claimed that just because consumer demand would shift towards free software, that the entire software industry would be destroyed. That's ridiculous.

Software would still be needed, and people would still need to be educated and compensated for writing and maintaining it. To assume that the market couldn't come up with a way to meet the demand and that the clock would be reset to 1920 is naïve.

Just because people demand a different color toilet paper (free software) the demand doesn't go away.

If everyone demanded that software be free we'd still have cellphones, search engines and games because people want that stuff, and they're going to pay for it one way or the other.

Of course business models would be different, but the end result probably wouldn't be. The main difference would be that there'd be more collaboration on shared problems (like game engines), instead of each proprietary software company coming up with their own solution.

I just don't think it's valid to say that carmakers should continue to be able to profit making cars in a world where nobody wants them simply because its hard work that they like.

I don't think that will happen, though, for precisely the reason you state.