Anti-FSF People Don’t Care About The Truth

Bold claim? Not really, because there are 2 ways we can come to this unassailable conclusion. People that are interested in finding the truth of the matter, and then acting accordingly do NOT:

1. Resort to illogical arguments
2. Come right out and say “this is not about the correctness” of the situation

You see, people that DO resort to illogical arguments and people that DO attempt to put aside the question of “correctness” have already come to a conclusion - they are simply attempting to rationalize their position.

In fact, one can see by the embrace of falacy and rejection of “correctness”, not only are they not interested in changing their position - but the position itself must be founded in illogic and incorrectness. It is a doubly bad position to be in, which brings to mind one of my favorite quotes: “you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.”

The best one can hope for in such cases is to point out the illogic of the position, and hope to innoculate the innocent.

Case In Point

While you could pick any long anti-FSF screed as example, and would be sure to find it chock full of inanities, one in particular came to my attention today on Reddit, in a thread on the FSF position on GPLv2 & current App Store terms [in re: VLC].

The focus of this link is Brett Smith – Licensing Compliance Engineer of the FSF – explaining the FSF position on the current App Store terms of service on the vlc-devel mailing list.

Please take a moment to read Mr. Smith’s posting. It is a rational and factual analysis of conflicts between the requirements of the GPL and the requirements of the App Store terms and conditions. Furthermore is was done upon request. It is neither ”evangelical” in content or intent.

There may be disagreement with Mr. Smith’s analysis on factual or legal grounds. That is not a problem, nor is it the issue here.

The problem here is how Mr. Smith – and by extension, the FSF – is attacked in response.

On the list

First, consider Jean-Baptiste Kemp’s response,:

I am not going to answer to this analysis now, but will make a point
that I hope you will understand in a simple way.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE CORRECTNESS OR NOT OF YOUR ANALYSIS.
THIS IS ABOUT YOUR ATTITUDE.

Your methods and attitudes are not polite, but they are destructive and dishonnest.

With ‘friends’ like you, we don’t need any ennemies.
If I understand correctly, the FSF new policy is to blow up communities?
With those attitudes, do not wonder why people are moving away from Open
Source development and from the GPL licences…
https://www.ohloh.net/languages/compare?measure=loc_changed

So, we have here an attempt to remove the facts from the discussion. This is a very attractive tactic when the facts are not on your side, but not so attractive if you are actually interested in being correct.

Then we have a personal attack, asserting that Mr. Smith is being “dishonest”. Quite cheeky, since just one sentence earlier Mr. Kemp is the one trying to downplay factual accuracy as being important.

Then we have a blatant misrepresentation attack on the FSF, ascribing them a malicious “new policy”.

Finally, we have a jumble of irrelevant and illogical attacks against the FSF by way of an argumentum ad populum to the GPL.

And that is just the opening section! If one desired, you could dismantle the rest of Mr. Kempf’s points, because each one is rooted in at least one logical fallacy – if not, to be direct, an outright falsehood.

If the Gentle Reader has the inclination then they may follow the thread and see more of the same, including a more balanced criticism of FSF from other participants, which serves to illustrate one can indeed criticize the FSF without the failings of the anti-FSF crowd.

On Reddit

It is also amusing and illustrative to note the anti-FSF comments in the corresponding Reddit thread. They range from more personal attacks on Mr. Smith: insinuating that since he is not a lawyer his analysis in invalid. (Which only raises the question that since the attacker is assumedly not a lawyer either, what grounds does he have to speak?)

Similar attacks are made against the FSF: asserting that since they are not the copyright holder, they should stay out of it. Which ignores both the facts that the FSF is the best authority on the GPL, since it is their license – and that the FSF’s opinion was explicitly sought out by another VLC developer. Not too mention several other developers asked for clarification on how the GPL and App Store terms and conditions may conflict. (Which only raises the question that since the attacker is assumedly not a VLC developer, what grounds does he have to speak?)

Furthermore, the anti-FSF brigade fails to mention that the original FSF blog on the VLC matter is simply reporting an action take by a VLC developer: the FSF did not initiate this action. Yet, there is a clear implication in the comments that the FSF somehow started an action to which it had no proper standing.

(Note that RMS himself states that it is “VLC enforcing the GPL against Apple.” Not only is it clear this is not an FSF action, no one from the FSF ever attempts to portray it that way. That is a pure misrepresentation by anti-FSF trolls.)

Why does the anti-FSF crowd attack the FSF here, instead of the actual real-life VLC developer who formally notified Apple of copyright infringement regarding distribution of the VLC media player? You will see other woefully misinformed (or dishonest) anti-FSF trolls continue to paint this situation as the FSF trying to remove VLC from the App Store, which is a laughably incorrect distortion of the events.

A Real Issue?

There is a real issue of interest here – two actually – the first is that there may be a fundamental incompatibility between the GPL and certain methods of distribution. This may be a troubling matter indeed if one of the incompatible methods of distribution turns out to be the most popular method of distribution.

This may lead to lessened adoption of the GPL, or an increase in dual-licensing, or exceptions. It may lead to a GPLv4 addressing the matter more specifically. It may lead to a decline in popularity of closed App Stores. It may lead to people deciding how much they are willing to compromise their commitment to Free Software just to get it on an Apple device.  It may lead to a change in terms of service on the App Store that remove the conflict. Any of these are areas of interesting speculation.

The other issue of interest is how utterly without substance the arguments the anti-FSF trolls offer are: distortions of timelines, implications of actions not actually taken, misrepresentation of positions, personal attacks galore, and logical fallacy after logical fallacy. 

I know I keep making that point… but they keep giving me so many examples.

The WebOS is an open platform, just like Windows and Mac OS.

Another example of how useless the term “Open” has become – it can mean anything (or nothing), and is rapidly becoming pure marketing-speak.

(I also love how the WebOS touts you can “browse the web … in the Internet Browser”. Sure, you could do that, or you could just browse the web in the browser you used to open up the WebOS with!)

Context

What interesting is that part of the discussion that night (that the cool fellow missed since he’s out of country right now) was on the subtle but important difference of advocating for “Free Software” vs. advocating for “Freedom of Choice”.

It’s a common ploy to suggest that since the FSF advocates for Free Software, and discourages the use and promotion of Closed and Proprietary software that this somehow means that the FSF is actually ”anti-freedom” or whatever nonsense detractors are trying to spin out of nothing.

Of course, if the FSF advocated that “any choice you make is equally acceptable”, then they would hardly be advocating Free Software, would they.

Perhaps the only reasonable thing the FSF could do is be clear and say something like ”while we aren’t trying to force anyone to do anything, you want you to know you have a choice, and we hope you choose Free Software”; they could even go on to list some reasons why Free Software is a good choice, in hopes of convincing people.

Oh wait. That’s exactly what they do already. Outrageous zealots! I shake my fist at thee!

Just a methodology

Consider this: if you think Open Source is “just a development methodology” and Free Software is “too idealistic”, it seems quite absurd to get all excited and promotional about Open Source.

I mean I know some bass players that get a bit preachy about how playing with a pick (instead of fingers) is a terrible affront, but:

1. No one is really that serious about it
2. Who cares what bass players think anyway?

If something is just a methodology or technique — even a far superior one — what is there to get so all fired-up about?

There must be something deeper at play here, and the truth is  “Open Source” – even the most pro-corporate watered down flavor – is deeply rooted in Free Software.

Despite some people’s misguided attempts to divorce Open Source from its philosophical underpinnings, the idea of Freedom still permeates Open Source.

And Freedom is something worth getting passionate about.

Free as in Freedom

It is often easy to miss how important Freedom is in software, because so many commentators on software come from a business perspective.

There’s nothing wrong with that perspective in and of itself, but one must acknowledge it comes from a quasi- sociopathic devotion to profit. The only thing that matters is making as much money while (ostensibly) not breaking the law. 

This perspective isn’t going to focus much on Freedom, because:

1. Freedom probably isn’t on their radar
2. If it is, it’s probably to remove it from the user so the user can’t easily replace the company products

Who cares wins

Business have a lot of power, but there is another large and powerful entity that does have obligations beyond making money: the government.

The US Government may be terribly flawed, but even so it is still a place where the word “Freedom” rings out:

In my experience, people generally serve in the US Armed Forces because they are passionate about defending freedom. “Free Software” is the general principle of freedom applied to software, so there is natural congruence with the shared ideals of US military personnel.

That’s the Associate Director of the Information Policy Agency Daniel Risacher talking to the FSF about Free Software use in the US Department of Defense.

It’s refreshing to realize there are other domains where ideals may actually play an important role.

Ms Paley is the directory of the awesome Sita Sings the Blues, and an enthusiastic Free Culture activist – so I am quite interested in her take on Free Software.

In her short article, Ms Paley makes two major points:

• In sponsoring a film, Patent Absurdity, that uses a -ND (no derivatives) clause, the FSF fails to uphold the Fourth Freedom (“freedom to improve and release improvements”)
• Software is culture, and so the distinction between “utility” (Software) and “aesthetics” (Culture) is false.

These are compelling points, although I recognize rms has addressed the need for certain restrictions on factual works to prevent misrepresentation. I’m not sure that the trade-off of attempting to maintain context is worth the sacrifice of preventing modification, so I tend to lean more toward Ms Paley’s position on this matter.

The second point is another issue where I tend to agree with Ms Paley: I don’t see a clear distinction between works of utility and works of aesthetics, because I think most works have elements of both.

I can also understand the argument that the FSF focuses on advocating software issues and not cultural matters in general, but that seems an unattractive distinction to make -  especially considering how clearly “Free Culture” is modeled after “Free Software”.

I suppose it is possible to support Free Software and not Free Culture, but that seems an odd stance to take – it seems more natural to me that someone who understands the benefits and necessity of Free Software would map that thinking quite naturally to Free Culture as well.

In any case, I highly recommend Ms Paley’s works both creative and philosophical.

On Windows

I like that the FSF is directly addressing moving to Free Software on Windows. There are a host of reasons why someone might use Windows but still be open to Free Software.

I don’t have any facts to back me up (not that I ever let that stop me) but I believe that many Linux users arrived via Free Software on Windows. At the very least, Free Software on Windows has the side effect of promoting open standards.

Early stages

It looks to me like there is more to come from this FSF campaign – I can see each “section” being expanded and tightened up rhetorically as well as the “gang” getting more members.

One issue

Mr. Bott calls out some of the points made on the PlayOgg FAQ as being “FUD”, “outright lies”, “technically absurd”, “factually dead wrong”, and maybe even downright anti-kittens-with-funny-captions-underneath.

Let’s look at one of his examples (we’ll only take the first one, but the entire article is chock-full of fallacious fun).

From the PlayOgg FAQ:

Unlike MP3, Ogg Vorbis is not restricted by patents. Microsoft had to pay $1.5 billion after being sued for using MP3 without a license. With Ogg Vorbis, they would have been safe!

Mr. Bott offers two criticisms:

That is an outright lie. Microsoft did not have to pay a penny to anyone as the result of a lawsuit on the MP3 format.
[...]
That overlooks the inconvenient fact that the first stable version of the Ogg Vorbis reference software (version 1.0) was not released until July 2002. It’s hard to imagine how Microsoft could have chosen the “safe” open-source option when it didn’t exist yet.

The problem

The truth is that as things turned out, Microsoft did not have to pay $1.5 billion. It was on the hook, and then off again six months later when a judge overturned the jury verdict.

Does that make the FAQ an “outright lie”? You be the judge.

If the last sentence off that PlayOgg FAQ had been a little more explicit and read “With a patent-free format like Ogg Vorbis, they would have been safe!”, would that be better? Would it change the validity of the point?

Of course not -  the point the PlayOgg FAQ is attempting to make is perfectly valid: there are no (first-party) patent restrictions on Ogg Vorbis[1], and MP3 has more than a few licensing and patent issues.

How about if the other patents that Microsoft did have to pay for in the same dispute with Alcatel-Lucent – to the tune of $512 million dollars – were mentioned?  True, they weren’t audio codec patents, but they were still the results of “infringing” on software patents.

Isn’t that the over-riding concern behind the PlayOgg campaign?

The polemics

People like Mr. Bott who carry water for organizations like Microsoft are going to resort to hypocrisy, hair-splitting and strawman-bashing tactics.

For example, Mr. Bott seems quite content to quote the CEO of the MPEG-LA asserting that “no one in the market should be under the misimpression that other codecs such as Theora are patent free” in the very article where he is taking the FSF to task for FUD.

For another example, Mr. Bott seems quite content to characterize the FSF as “open-source advocates” – a very sloppy generalization – in the very article where he is taking the PlayOgg FAQ author to task for making sloppy generalizations.

It is my contention this sort of rhetoric always occurs when people are more interested in “scoring points” than reaching the truth of the matter or engaging in honest debate. There is a mindset that if you can score enough points you somehow change reality and win the argument even if you are wrong. I don’t get that way of thinking, but it seems to be quite common.

The prevention

So, be aware of that mindset when you write. There will always be someone out there ready to take a cheap shot or play integrity-free games with the point you are trying to make. You can’t stop them – because they aren’t after the truth - but you don’t have to give up free points on the goal either.

[1] It would be difficult to claim there are no patent restrictions at all on any non-trivial software, because of the currently terribly broken software patent system in the United States. Since patent trolls or any random 3rd party can claim a patent violation, the best one can claim is that the producer itself has declined to restrict the software.

Usually I’m not this pedantic, but since being a bit more pedantic is sort of the whole point of this article …

Award for Advancement of Free Software: John Gilmore (Cygnus Solutions)

Award for Project of Social Benefit: Internet Archive