> Non-free, proprietary software is also much more likely to be malware—to contain malicious functionalities, of which there are many kinds. Non-free programs can spy on the users, report on them. Many are designed specifically to restrict what users can do—that’s their purpose.
I think this is a mischaracterization, since these things apply to free software as well. The difference is that it is usually much easier to detect when such things are happening, and modify the program so that it no longer does these things.
> Another form of malicious functionality is tying the program to a specific remote server
Again, this doesn’t seem to me to be a “free software” argument. The reason this doesn’t usually happen with free software is that there is no central entity that controls the software, whereas with non-free software one company/server/person can control their products and “backdoor” them.
> If a program is written in Swift, you can now install it yourself from source code.
This is not quite true. I can do the same for a program written in Objective-C as well, and I can still write an app in Swift and send you a compiled binary for you to install. Perhaps Stallman was talking about Swift Playgrounds, but even here there are issues: you cannot necessarily change the code on your device itself, and the environment that your code runs in is much more restrictive.
> free software is something businesses can use and develop and sell.
I have seen many companies use free software, but very few actually making money off of free software. When I ask, I’m usually pointed to RedHat, which makes money off of providing support. However, the money they’re getting is usually coming from companies that sell non-free software. So I’m really curious how the economy would work if everyone sold free software, since this doesn’t seem like something that would work.
Also, just a a final comment, I find it amusing that Stallman has these little nicknames for all the non-free things he doesn’t like. It seems to me a bit childish; I wonder if this actually helps him or it just makes other people feel like I do.
I think this is a mischaracterization, since these things apply to free software as well. The difference is that it is usually much easier to detect when such things are happening, and modify the program so that it no longer does these things.
That's an interesting rewriting of "the law prohibits the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges," but if you read back he said "more likely," not "it's impossible for free software to have bad stuff in it."
> I think this is a mischaracterization, since these things apply to free software as well. The difference is that it is usually much easier to detect when such things are happening, and modify the program so that it no longer does these things.
> Again, this doesn’t seem to me to be a “free software” argument. The reason this doesn’t usually happen with free software is that there is no central entity that controls the software, whereas with non-free software one company/server/person can control their products and “backdoor” them.
But that is the whole point! Software freedom is about power. The point isn't that it is impossible to licence malware under GPL, the point is that GPL gives the user the freedom to remove the malware parts. Your argument seems a bit like saying that claiming that free markets help with price discovery is a mischaracterization because people can offer overpriced products in a free market ... when the whole point of a free market is that the buyer has the option to not buy the overpriced product, and it's just completely irrelevant whether overpriced offers exist.
> So I’m really curious how the economy would work if everyone sold free software, since this doesn’t seem like something that would work.
Potentially, the mistake is simply in thinking in terms of "selling software". Instead of software, you can simply sell development work. Not that that necessarily works in every market, but the point is that the model of repeatedly selling the end result of the development work is not the only way to make money by applying your expertise at developing software.
> Also, just a a final comment, I find it amusing that Stallman has these little nicknames for all the non-free things he doesn’t like. It seems to me a bit childish; I wonder if this actually helps him or it just makes other people feel like I do.
Well, the emotional reaction can be a problem for him being taken serious by some. But you have to consider that the status quo in many ways is not neutral, and also often the result of intentional framing by other parties. It's just that they are way better at hiding their manipulation from your view.
>However, the money they’re getting is usually coming from companies that sell non-free software.
Most of their customers don't sell software, basically every company needs software these days. They still have those needs if all software were free, so I'm not really seeing the problem.
>Also, just a a final comment, I find it amusing that Stallman has these little nicknames for all the non-free things he doesn’t like. It seems to me a bit childish;
He named his first major project after a local ice cream shop, and his second after a children's song from the fifties. That's just him. I find it silly but don't see it as credible attack on his message.
The Flanders and Swan song ("I'm a gnu") was not a kid's song.
I'm not sure if Emacs and Bolio was open when the editor evolved, but the text formatting program (like runoff) called "Bolio" was definitely named after the ice cream store (since by the time it was written Emacs already existed).
The icecream shop is actually "Emack and Bolio's". This leads me to believe that Bolio was named for the icecream shop (punning Emacs~Emack's), but that Emacs was not named for the icecream shop. (Emack and Bolio's opened in 1975, and it seems that Emacs was created in 1976; so it's possible though.)
> Also, just a a final comment, I find it amusing that Stallman has these little nicknames for all the non-free things he doesn’t like. It seems to me a bit childish; I wonder if this actually helps him or it just makes other people feel like I do.
This seems like a logical counter to the Orwellian argument that language shapes though.
If you propose you should be free of Microsoft influence, you should reject their rebranding of spyware as Telemetry. It's a political statement more than childish mockery.
If nothing else if does force one to consider which term is closer to the truth, the one commonly used or the one Stallman invented. Used and users seems very clever, while global heating vs global warming seems arbitrary, while some people may think of heating as more threatening than warming, I'm not sure that's universal.
For what it’s worth, “global heating” is how the phenomenon is described in spanish (“calentamiento global”, while global warming” would be “entibiamiento global”), so to a native spanish speaker like me it doesn’t read odd that he uses it that way in english.
For what it's worth, Stallman speaks both Spanish and French in which the expression "global warming" does translate as though it were "global heating".
There have been instances of open-source programs (including a certain code editor Hackernews has a collective nerdgasm over every time a release drops) shipping with telemetry or other spying features enabled. In some cases (like that one popular browser), the vendor makes it difficult or impossible to disable those features without modifying and recompiling the code.
Several years ago I recommended to Stallman to switch to using the term liberating software. I believe it is far better at conveying the whole meaning and is far more inviting.
> Non-free, proprietary software is also much more likely to be malware—to contain malicious functionalities, of which there are many kinds. Non-free programs can spy on the users, report on them. Many are designed specifically to restrict what users can do—that’s their purpose.
I think this is a mischaracterization, since these things apply to free software as well. The difference is that it is usually much easier to detect when such things are happening, and modify the program so that it no longer does these things.
> Another form of malicious functionality is tying the program to a specific remote server
Again, this doesn’t seem to me to be a “free software” argument. The reason this doesn’t usually happen with free software is that there is no central entity that controls the software, whereas with non-free software one company/server/person can control their products and “backdoor” them.
> If a program is written in Swift, you can now install it yourself from source code.
This is not quite true. I can do the same for a program written in Objective-C as well, and I can still write an app in Swift and send you a compiled binary for you to install. Perhaps Stallman was talking about Swift Playgrounds, but even here there are issues: you cannot necessarily change the code on your device itself, and the environment that your code runs in is much more restrictive.
> free software is something businesses can use and develop and sell.
I have seen many companies use free software, but very few actually making money off of free software. When I ask, I’m usually pointed to RedHat, which makes money off of providing support. However, the money they’re getting is usually coming from companies that sell non-free software. So I’m really curious how the economy would work if everyone sold free software, since this doesn’t seem like something that would work.
Also, just a a final comment, I find it amusing that Stallman has these little nicknames for all the non-free things he doesn’t like. It seems to me a bit childish; I wonder if this actually helps him or it just makes other people feel like I do.