A few days ago I committed the worst of sins. Argue the teachings of St. Richard Stallman. My sacrilege consisted in saying that In the age we are living in, the four freedoms of free software are irrelevant.
The responses of those who disagreed with me were personal disqualifications and threats not to read the blog any more. No one disputed the substantive claim. The one of what Big tech companies don't need to have a monopoly on code to control and dominate their customers.
The free software movement was created by programmers to solve programmer problems. Even the open project development communities were organized in such a way that lcode contributions were more valued than other species. When computing became massive, creating other problems such as monopolies and lack of privacy, Stallman and his followers simply believed that what was important to developers was going to be important to non-developers.. They were wrong.
Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp they are built partly using open source software tools. Even these companies published their own bookstores. In fact, there are free software alternatives such as Diaspora, Mastodon or Signal. But, most of the people prefer to keep using Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp.
And they prefer to continue using them, because Instead of creating a product to satisfy the ego of the developers, they were created to respond to the needs of the people. Diaspora, Mastodon and Signal were late and only to fix things that were not priorities for the general public.
In the 80s, an industry observer explained why the Japanese had so far outdone the Swiss in the digital watch market
No self-respecting master watchmaker would tarnish his engineering work by adding a calculator, games, and an alarm to ring. For Elisa.
It turned out that people loved that a watch did more than tell time, and they didn't care that it didn't last a lifetime.
Free and open source software developers are like Swiss watchmakers. Unable to think beyond what they and their colleagues think a program should do. Can you imagine Linus Torvalds reaction if someone proposes to include something in the kernel simply because it is fun?
The death of free and open source software. Tarik Amr's vision
Tarek Amr is an engineer specialized in Machine Learning. He goes further than me and says which free and open source software is dead. He explains it this way:
Nothing prevents anyone from creating a video or music player, a photo editor or a chat application under free or open source licenses. Actually, there are already many of these created 20 years ago and they were being used massively. These programs still exist, the only difference is that two important changes were lost; the cloud and the coupling between hardware and software.
Amr notes that people prefer to use cloud services like Spotify, iTunes, or Netflix that combine the player and the content in the same solution eliminating the need to get it, order it and store it.
Regarding the use of solutions of doubtful legality such as Popcorn Time, the engineer argues that this can be used for computers. But, In mobile phones, smart televisions and other devices where the hardware and software form a unit, it becomes increasingly difficult to install these types of programs
In his own words
It is clear, from the examples I have just mentioned, that although companies are increasingly using free software, in the daily lives of consumers all the programs that are used are closed source.
They can get angry with me, with Tarek Arm and with all of us who dare to question the dogmas of the free software religion. But, the king is still naked.
Quoting Tarek Arm again
It is perfectly okay to admit that Free Software and Open Source ideas are dead, as the computing environments and legal frameworks in which they were created have also disappeared. What matters now is that there are new advocates who understand the cloud economics, today's legal frameworks, and perhaps technologies like blockchain and smart contracts, and who come forward with a fresh, modern alternative to software. free.
I would add that we need open source projects that understand consumer wants and needs and serve as the foundation for creating services and applications that people are excited to use.
The idea is not to enter into personal attacks but it seems that you do not know the difference between "free software" and "open source" that although at a technical level they can be the same at a philosophical level, it is not.
People may prefer solutions like Netflix, but solutions like Netflix surely rely on open source solutions to work, WhatsApp itself uses Signal for data encryption.
However, if I see free software in danger, companies are stripped of the 4 freedoms, they simply contribute to open source software because it suits them and they try to obtain as much control as possible, that is why Apple wants to remove everything that is GNU In their MACs, in the BBVA where I have worked, I have heard things like "Avoid software that is GPL". The app stores created a bigger problem trying to solve another, just look at Canonical trying to control Snap as much as it can.
Why isn't Microsoft showing its love for Linux by releasing a version of Office?
Thanks for your comment
If you think that free software is not a success, you are absolutely wrong. Do you think the objective was the one you present in the article? Or what do you think is the goal of free software, to make your dream desktop and the one we all should use? Or the messaging application that you want? Obviously I am the first to see the great danger of WhatsApp, but free or open source software was born and exists as a protection of knowledge as a fundamental pillar, but not to program the application that you want us all to use. That monopolies use free software in a very dirty way? That is a reality without or with free software, they will use abusive practices saying that it is for our own good and they do whatever they want, taking advantage of legal loopholes. That people do not value their privacy and even if you say that there is abuse they give you ridiculous phrases, whether you are a communist or ridiculous nonsense so unsustainable that they embarrass others. There are the image control mechanisms of these companies, to target enemies and clean their image, and this is a great problem of our century since these practices are being used in all areas. Companies are unique in playing dirty games. Without going any further, Apple conference, showed a version of debian in its worst shot to show that MacOS is very beautiful and all the others ugly. Or Microsoft that whenever they copy something from the Linux world, they come out days before saying that they love Linux. Then they copy what comes out of their balls, they contribute shit to free software and for the press how good they are, how much they have changed, everything perfectly designed from advertising departments. Free software is not an application, nor a desktop, nor Linux, it is the way to protect that you and I can program an open or closed application without being reported, although preferably the application is open, and we can learn from the knowledge and work previously done by others. And at the present time the project that does not have to use it is rare, and between you and me, this does not make a lot of companies even f ... funny. And this is a my land is great success.
In 5 years, when everything is done in the cloud and the only thing that is sold are dumb Chromebook-style terminals, we talk.
Thanks for comment.
Well then, instead of us starting to complain, we are going to fight and improve those free software rules, to force many companies to meet the challenges of our time. Think that everything can be born even on a page like linuxadictos, why not? and let's start opening the debate, to get ahead of the abuse. Let's start by analyzing the current problems, contributing each person's experience. There are many of us and although these things can be given a better shape, on a bar terrace, in the cool, we can begin to give arguments to this idea in the comments. Although the challenges are more about privacy than free software these days. I am very concerned about the abuse of privacy that everything is taking.
That is the way.
Thanks for comment.
I'm going to start with the first ones:
- If a manufacturer, for example, makes a television with some smart-type functionalities, all of them must be active without having to connect to the internet at any time, except the specific and direct ones. And provide the simple and easy method of updating from a usb offline. That in LG I finished up to the cap, not to mention that an update removed a codec because according to them the license had expired. In the box it did not put any of that, later due to the complaints they put it again.
- This is very important and very much in line with what we are talking about regarding privacy, if the device has a camera and microphone and its size is greater than one volume, both modules must be specified and can be easily removed without losing the warranty and the device It must retain its functionality except those specific and directly related to the use of these peripherals. Example a camera to take photos is specific but a TV that has a camera, not by removing the camera and no longer plays videos, I mean. And by this I mean like the spy microphone that has many televisions in command.
- Every manufacturer must attach a sheet that specifies direct links where are the copies of free software that they have used in a clear way throughout the warranty period of the article. And the "about" is not worth me, many hide it in the last corner and then you access that link and you get an invalid page or other nonsense (Samsung is unique in this).
And I think that out there we can come up with ideas that are also more related to software, such as the abandonment by manufacturers of updating old models and not even giving you the option to install something else. When a television or mobile is discontinued, for the end of the warranty, they would have to force companies to open the firmware for the community to mess with it. Because my TV has an error in the DLNA and they have not corrected it, nor will they now. It annoys me that it is silly that in an hour I would have it programmed and it would work correctly.
Nor is it closing off other possibilities. Obviously the markets promoted by software companies try to direct everything to the cloud and silly terminals and that is where the evolution in the application of libertarian philosophies also comes in. As long as there is a small group that prefers freedom over comfort or oppressive security, there will be free alternatives and the legal struggle that this implies. Although they are small, revolutionary groups are part of the development and positive change of large societies. In my point of view, sin will never result from an honest opinion, which is appreciated, sin is not seeing beyond the cave that the controllers make us.
"When everything is done in the cloud and the only thing that is sold are silly terminals"
There may be a lot of xo desktop computers sold (not silly terminals) there will always be. History predicts the future. When the radio appeared, the newspapers did not disappear. When talkies came, the radio did not disappear. When television arrived, the cinema did not disappear. When the video arrived, the TV did not disappear, etc. Today there are all, each with a place. So you see that your prediction is not going well ;-)
"Can you imagine Linus Torvalds' reaction if someone proposes to include something in the kernel simply because it's fun?"
That question is like calling match-lighting fun in a fueling zone. There is a great distance between the funny and the stupid.
Bravo!
The software you use for comments leaves a lot to be desired. I wanted to respond to Cristian in his first comment and, however, my comment appears much lower, inside a comment that has nothing to do with it. Thus the conversation cannot be followed well.
Did you think of Disqus? It seems more intuitive and logical to me.
I think the whole article is poorly raised, in reality free software licenses have nothing to do with whether people use it or not, the purpose of free software is being confused, as far as I remember one uses this license to avoid others the effort of having to build everything from scratch and at the same time that whoever uses it cannot close it, that is the only purpose, now you are proposing platforms that are providing a service and which are based on free software, this already It does not have to do with free software but rather it has to do with the digital market, and this is quite another matter.
The availability by our association for digital resources accessible via the Internet is a considerable extension of association activities.
There are excellent reasons to do so, attract new members, especially young people, organize
to support individual members' activities to echo outside sessions, internships, and conferences.
It is a beautiful project and should not be taken lightly nor, above all, done by the water improvising in a
empirical. It is a project that must be structured and subject to a conscious, ethical and responsible approach. In short, it will
have to work.
The impact of such evolution of the action of the association touches many fields and that cannot be reduced to
A technical problem. We have no tiger to tame and we will have no enemies to fight.
What is concerned:
- Technical and commercial: The creation of a web infrastructure under the auspices of the association.
- Legal: Updating of internal regulations, updating of employment contracts to assume all responsibilities. regulatory and contractual obligations of the association, explicit definition of the association's role as manager of an internet infrastructure, user and content producer, which means being clear about intellectual property, respect for privacy, responsibility towards employees, administrators and members, this
The last point is extremely important.
- Organization: definition of new tasks, appointment of actors, description of their activities, training.
- Digital literacy: digital conversion, regardless of the forms and means used, is causing deep cultural upheaval: the modalities of interpersonal relationships are modified and spread to new forms of relationships,
Access to digital content induces new cognitive practices, the production of this digital content
involve the acquisition of specific skills that concern not only creation but also measurement and
to control the use by the recipients of these contents in a remote and asynchronous way, the management of information exchanges between all the actors of the association.
- Sociability: a new type of relationship, dematerialized, distant, far from bodies and deprived of non-verbal signs, attitudes, gestures and verbal exchanges other than those prerecorded and without interactions.
The ways of assuming this evolution:
Work in project mode:
Constitution of a necessarily provisional working group that will be in charge of carrying out this new adventure.
Definition of needs, description of the tasks to be carried out, assignment of these tasks to human resources, monitoring of
Cooperative approach.
This very dense and precise presentation necessarily has a very intimidating impact at first glance, as it suddenly looks like a Himalayas to climb.
In fact, it is not, none of the steps to follow is formidable or horribly complex, it just requires a little discernment, a little skill but we already have everything within the association, a little organized work.
By far the main thing is to conscientiously and responsibly follow the evolution of these new practices in part
handling our word and helping each other to overcome these developments and continue to offer with kindness and selflessness the rich sociability and beauty of our humanistic activities.
Coming soon, Using Nexcloud self-managed by ourselves, a jitsi instinct.
It is quite noticeable that this is approached in the article from the point of view of an end user, in his search for standardization and comfort; ignoring the philosophical basis under which the GNU environment licenses operate.
Twenty years from now, when the Big 20 tech dominate it all, the only thing left of the philosophy you're talking about is going to be Linus Torvalds, Jim Zemlin and Richard Stallman fixing the world at a bar table.
I do not agree with this. We are just experiencing the boom of free hardware, for example today it is possible to have a free phone, something that was not possible until recently (librem, pinephone).
It is clear that there is a problem in the massiveness: The bulk of the people do not care about their privacy before corporations, and less about free software. But these announcements that you make that in X years we free software users will have only dumb terminals to buy, I see it far away and at the opposite of reality.
If you talk about the normal user, the one who does not care ... well, it may be true that he is losing freedom. And it may be true that you are going to buy the garbage that they sell you ... for years you have been buying mac or terminals with windows, so nothing new under the sun.
Let's see, free software and open source is more alive than ever. That it has possibilities of commercial exploitation does not mean that it is dead or the system is out of date, quite the contrary. That WhatsApp or Spotify or Netflix now triumph does not mean that tomorrow they will not fall into disuse, there you have the example of Twenti or Messenger or Nokia with their mobiles.
Free software and open source allow diversity, it allows that if I like to make my own music server, then do it, if I like to watch the videos in reverse, do it, and if people like it, then I can market the licensing service.
You are mistaking the marketing systems, because a licensing system is not the same as a software sales system. It's like confusing ticket sales with the sale of the movie theater building.
And if in 20 years we don't like cinema, we can make another one. not?
A greeting.
Someone who also sees it as I do. I was already scared to see him alone like that.
An idiot comes and yells: Free Software is dead! Who killed him? The cloud!,… Wait: Doesn't the cloud work almost all on Free Software? Oh yeah, I wanted so badly to be quoting Tarek Amr that I can't see what's in front of my nose! And who the hell is Tarek Amr, why are we giving him a voice here? I don't know, I just wanted to argue by writing an article, like the fish that asks What is water?
It is the "article / justification" of a most deplorable point of view that I have read in my life. You complained that:
«The responses of those who disagreed with me were personal disqualifications and threats not to read the blog anymore. No one disputed the substantive claim. "
and there are several quite informed and structured answers and you have limited yourself to giving them the "plane" without really answering anything, imposing your point of view that at some point everything will become a monopoly ... but okay ... it's your "article" ... you make the rules I suppose and that is going well for me ...
I'll explain it to you from the user level, I have 60 blocks, I started installing slackware with 3 1/2 diskettes, 24 for more data, I am an architect and manager of a company, my computers work, the laptops in opensuse, the central server in debian, and the laptops of the others, some with windows and another on mac, 80% is linux, so from slackware until 2020, it is effectively dying out, the fuck ..., and the street staff don't worry, It is neither in favor of windows nor linux, it does not find out, but it does not decide either, but do not worry the largest company was ibm, and now it does not decide anything or influence, we are legion
I see it that way, most of the people are only users, they are not interested in how an application is isolated, they only mount the application, they understand what it is for and they are happy and that also makes me happy and they just take it into the program and develop it. If it works for them, they buy it so I win and if free and open source software is there for all of us who are interested in learning and sharing knowledge, they already see how most corporations have profited from free and open source software because it is free and they can take it without costing them almost nothing to remember knowledge is power and well applied it gives profit it is very nice that most people are software users