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.

eLiberatica is an “Open Source and Free Software” conference in Romania, sponsored by Microsoft. A Gentle Reader of this blog, Dan Serban, questioned this relationship and contacted Richard Stallman for his comments on such situations.

Lucy, you’ve got some ‘splaining to do!

eLiberatica Conference Chair Lucian Savluc has offered up “Some clarity about eLiberatica and Microsoft“. Mr. Savluc’s response is a bit odd but seems well-intentioned.

I call the response odd because although Mr. Savluc defends Microsoft’s sponsorship role, he simultaneously confesses that:

• Microsoft is “not right”
• Microsoft’s speakers “lack passion”
• Microsoft “is wrong”
• Microsoft speakers “pretend they love FLOSS”
• Microsoft “will try hard to slow down FLOSS adoption”
• Microsoft “will not change if we talk to them”

Personally, I agree with those points, and so have difficulty resolving why a conference with the goal of developing a “healthy Free Software, Open Source, and Digital Civil Society movement, and to promote Free/Libre/Open-Source Software business models” would allow Microsoft to have a sponsorship role.

Especially because we know based on court documents that Microsoft had a policy of “stacking” panels and conferences!

So, believing that Microsoft is both wrong and trying to retard FLOSS adoption, and knowing Microsoft will intentionally deceive conference organizers and attendees, I wonder exactly how one reconciles that with the expressed goal of promoting Free Software?

I guess part of it is people feel like they need the money that a Microsoft sponsorship brings, and another part is people simply do not want to acknowledge Microsoft’s bad behavior. If you try to do both, to take their money and condemn them, you end up having some awkward blog post that winds up on this site.

RMS Comments

Here is the email from RMS that Gentle Reader Dan Serban was kind enough to provide. Outer quoted material is RMS, inner quoted material is Mr. Serban’s.

Please distribute this in the community.

My question to you: is it appropriate for Microsoft Corporation to be sponsoring free software community events? What is your stance on this topic?

Accepting the money from Microsoft would, in itself, do not harm.  But Microsoft typically demands a price for its sponsorship, a price that implies a change in the nature of the event.

The price might be, let someone from Microsoft give a speech.  The price might be, don’t say that proprietary software is evil.  The price might be, present Microsoft sponsorship in a way that inhibits you from denouncing Microsoft’s software as unethical.

One way or other, Microsoft wants us to stop saying the most important thing to say: “Proprietary software is an injustice and we want to help you escape from it.”

This issue does not arise for OSCON because that is an open source event.  “Open source” is the term used by those who do not wish to take an ethical stand against proprietary software.  OSCON did not need to sell out its principles in order to accept Microsoft’s money because it never had such principles.  I heard that O’Reilly Associates distributes manuals with Digital Restrictions Management. which can only be read using nonfree software.  I don’t know for certain if that is accurate, but it would not conflict with any principles ORA ever stated.

OSCON is the sort of event Microsoft would like our community to have, one that avoids raising the issue of the injustice of proprietary software.  If eLiberatica is to live up to its name, it must not take OSCON as a model.

myself) and mr. Savluc he insists that in order to be able to finance FLOSS community booths and speaking engagements by yourself and other guests from outside Romania, he needs to bring in Microsoft Corporation as a sponsor.

I would be glad to visit eLiberatica some day, if its message is true to its name.  But don’t weaken the event to get money from Microsoft to bring me.  My speech might do some good, but it could not entirely counteract the weakening effect of the changes that Microsoft would require.

It is better to do without Microsoft’s sponsorship and have a smaller event.

In Summation

I suppose an “Open Source” conference can safely allow a Microsoft sponsorship, if one is speaking of the divorced-from-Free Software modern “Open Source”. As RMS states, there are no principles there to be violated.

However, a conference that attempts to strongly promote “Free and Open Source software” with special emphasis on the “libre”, can not safely allow a Microsoft sponsorship. The compromise in principle is too great.

The harm outweighs any benefit. One must always keep in mind sponsorship is beneficial for Microsoft – they would not sponsor an event if it were not so. Since we know Microsoft opposes Free Software in practice and principle, one must ask what benefit Microsoft sees in sponsoring an event promoting Free Software?

It is, as RMS says, to weaken the event; to decrease or suppress any criticism of proprietary software in general and Microsoft in specific.

Very good reading, even with a couple of poor questions.

Seeing the Future

I quite enjoyed seeing how RMS tempered prophetic statements with unfortunate real-world experience. Consider this insight from RMS into why it would be unlikely for a commercial entity to produce something like Emacs:

I don’t think that anything like EMACS could have been developed commercially. Businesses have the wrong attitudes. The primary axiom of the commercial world toward users is that they are incompetent, and that if they have any control over their system they will mess it up. The primary goal is to give them nothing specific to complain about, not to give them a means of helping themselves.

Some 23 years later, on the commerically amazing debut of the iPad, it’s striking how accurate this assessment is!

Understanding the Past

The unfortunate real-world experience is recounted on the “betrayal” of the sharing ideals by persons such as Russell Noftsker and James Gosling, both of which took advantage of (proto-) Free Software for commerical benefit.

It is precisely this “school of hard knocks” experience that makes the GPL so grounded in real-world understanding, rather than the “zealotry” and “idealism” that detractors struggle mightily to paint it with. RMS knows how people will try to abuse Free Software,  and the GPL has parts specifically constructed to prevent such abuse!

The Cultural Significance of Free Software

As interesting as the main H article is, through a link it led me to an even more interesting read, Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software.

This is a fascinating book, completely available online under CC-BY-NC-SA, not only with extensive references and footnotes, but also allowing reader commenting and “modulating“.

I don’t know about “free software”. Even after more than a decade it’s still an alien term for me. I know it is “opensource” for as far as I’m concerned. And that’s all I care about.
- Philip Van Hoof, GNOME Foundation Member

Usually I turn to HBO or Showtime to provide me with my drama fix, but the GNOME Foundation Mailing List is doing a pretty durn good job of spicing it up these last few weeks. It’s so good I might have to break it up over a few entries.

New Thing: Same as the Old Thing

This latest kerfluffle (not to be confused with earlier kerfluffles [1] [2]) started up over concerns for a strategic roadmap on GNOME, the thread got all heated up by names that will be familiar to anyone following such issues (“trollers gonna troll” is how the kids say it in their rap music) , a re-boot was attempted, and now people are  unsubscribing from the mailing list[1][2].

Jump on in, the water’s fine

Like I said, there’s a ton of stuff to comment on, but here’s one to start on:

[Richard Stallman] Implementing a free platform for C# is a good thing to do.  If you would like to promote the use of C# itself, how about explaining to Novell and Microsoft that they need to fully implement said protection in an ironclad way for all the usual C# libraries.

[Miguel de Icaza] I spend a considerable amount of time doing this.   It has taken time, and there would be no Community Promise, and there would be no Silverlight agreement (the one that has no special Novell provisions) without this work.

[Ace Ventura]>Re-he-he-he-eally??
What about the fact that the Covenant defines a “Conforming Host” as either a web browser or a launcher implemented by Novell?

Wat about the fact that the Covenant defines “Moonlight 3” as only those portions developed by or on behalf of Novell?

What about the fact that the Covenant specifically defines the terms “Novell-Provided Copies” and “Novell Distribution“?

What about the fact that the Covenant restricts “by license and technical means” Media Packs to work only with Novell-Provided Copies of Moonlight?

What about the fact that the Covenant specifies test suites that Microsoft will provide to Novell for testing the functionality of Novell’s Moonlight candidates?

A simple request

Now, having read the text of the Covenant, anyone care to tell me exactly how there are no special Novell provisions in the Silverlight agreement?

Don’t get mad and call me a zealot or make fun of how rms uses the internet or engage in whatever distractionary technique Team Apologista has queued up when someone raises uncomfortable questions.

And don’t just attack one of those questions, either. You need to show that not a single one is a “special Novell provision”.

Extra irony

You may appreciate knowing that Mr. de Icaza makes this assertion – that there are no special Novell provisions (when there clearly are) – while calling a FSF article on mono “a package of half-truths” and accusing rms of spreading “half truths”.

I suppose even a package of half-truths is a step up from a package of no-truths.

Gnote and Fedora

The Good: Gnote has a new support team in place with exciting plans.

The Bad: Said support team has to bend over backward to make it clear they are not “anti-Mono”. After effects of the smear campaign against the original author of Gnote?

Of ripples in a pond…

The Beez on how he deals with comments to his opinion pieces. I am of much the same mind. With the exceptions of spam, profane or insane posts, I don’t restrict comments.

You’d be suprised – or maybe not – on how many profane and insane comments I get. Some of them are literally zero-content comprised of pure profanity. Obviously, such comments show the level of intellectual discourse of some segment of the loyal opposition, but the really interesting thing is that if you just swapped out the profanity with slightly more polite language, you’d have the same comments from an even larger segment of that same opposition!

Things like that amuse me.

You have to be amused, or you’d never stop vomiting.

WordPress Foundation

One thing I’ve always liked about WordPress is the unabashed support for the GPL. Check out the Philosopy behind the recently-formed WordPress Foundation:

The software should be licensed under the GNU Public License.

The software should be freely available to anyone to use for any purpose, and without permission.

The software should be open to modifications.

Any modifications should be freely distributable at no cost and without permission from its creators.

The software should provide a framework for translation to make it globally accessible to speakers of all languages.

The software should provide a framework for extensions so modifications and enhancements can be made without modifying core code.

Two things I really like about this: First, it specifically calls out for the GPL! and second, I like the idea that there are requirements above and beyond the software license. A major failing of many “Open Source” promoters is thinking that the license is the be-all, end-all of Open/Free, even as some companies work overtime finding loopholes and “workarounds” to Open Source Licenses.

Richard Stallman on The Setup

I love how the world biggest Apple fan boy (meant in a loving way) sums this up:

Say what you want about him, but he walks the walk.

Wow. Contrast this simple and honest recognition with some of the “Open Source Supporter” vile efforts to portray RMS as a hypocrite.

Ask YouTube for Ogg support!

The FSF blog calls for people to let Google know they would like to see Ogg support on You Tube.

Not only is this something that would be an awesome win for a real Open Standard, but it’s yet another thing that puts to lie the “Open Source Supporter” tactic of portraying the FSF as negative zealots.

The latter document is an informative read, and Bruce Byfield has an insightful take on the situation in his article “Selling GPL Exceptions isn’t Exceptional“.

What Lies Beneath

Although the actual specifics are fairly interesting in and of themselves, I’m more interested in an underlying theme, one that Mr. Byfield astutely hits upon here:

Both supporters and opponents of the FSF sometimes seem to have created a set of straw figures to react to. The supporters have done so out of uncritical respect (if not downright hero worship) of Stallman and the FSF, and the opponents for propaganda, but the results are surprisingly similar. For both, Stallman and the FSF are ethically and morally uncompromising — admirably so, for supporters, and naively, dangerously so for opponents.

I often wonder how it is that RMS, a person who expends considerable effort to explain himself precisely is so grossly misrepresented? (Quite a bit moreso by his opponents, I should say. In my humble opinion, Mr. Byfield is bending over backward to present both sides in the same light here.)

It is a favorite tactic of some to paint a caricature of Free Software supporters in general, and RMS in specific, as uncompromising unrealistic “zealots” with only the barest understanding of how the “real world” functions. Yet even the most casual examination of FSF articles and actions refutes such a notion.

Thus I return again to my point that the vocal anti-Free Software critics are either ignorant or malicious.¹ The FSF is quite good at laying out its philosophy in great detail on its website. You don’t have to sign an NDA or anything.

¹ The sadly necessary disclaimer:  I’m not suggesting there is no valid criticism out there, just that people who play the “zealot” card, ridicule RMS or the FSF for “hypocrisy”, or enage in other such fact and logic-free fallacies are to be dismissed with scorn.