I hope it isn’t dismissive of Stallman’s contributions to OSS to say his idealism has the same glaring issues as communism. That it basically ignores incentive structures altogether and replaces them with the social pressure of “just do the right thing”. It’s kind of exhausting too when people who already make a great living and have basically just traded more money for social clout and moral authority lecture everyone else with “it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to build a business to support your family, what matters is this idealism, and if you disagree you’re a bad person”. I’m as happy as the next guy that open source won, but clearly it was only ever going to happen for business reasons and not social pressure and idealistic reasons (even if those were instrumental early on).
I would say that the "permissive" licenses are the ones that ignore incentive structures and expect people to contribute back because of feelies (if you think that works, I encourage you to go boot a copy of PureDarwin). GPL on the other hand is a brilliant hack of copyright law that has extremely successfully aligned business incentive structures to the point that Microsoft is a Linux contributor.
I really think you are selling Stallman's pragmatism short. While he very laudably tries to live by his own principles as uncompromisingly as possible, it's clear that he sees social systems as things to be engineered, with moral pressure being but one tool of many. Certainly his grasp of such systems is not perfect. But I think he's done astoundingly well for a reclusive, autistic nerd with no social skills.
I would argue that it is way easier to build a business around GPL licence than MIT.
I think the subject at hand is different from what you are writing.
What you are saying doesn't apply to the debate between permissive licenses and copy left licenses.
It does - he’s talking about the philosophical difference between free software and open source, and I’m criticizing the moral argument he makes with regard to free software. If somebody decides to use GPL because they want to prevent others from copying their work and competing against them (which actually seems less open/free? besides the point) then that’s a pragmatic/economic reason, not a moral/idealistic reason. They would still be in the “open source” camp even if their license was written by Stallman.
> which actually seems less open/free? besides the point
You can't have freedom (or at least won't have it for long) if others have the freedom to take it away from you.
Copyleft gives you every possible freedom, except the freedom to withold those freedoms from the next person that comes along. It's not just a way to give freedom, it's a way to enforce it.
You could say that anarchy, where everyone is free to do everything, is the ultimate freedom. Then you step out of your bunker and get shot because someone wanted your shiny watch. So we trade a few freedoms in exchange for being able to enjoy the rest of them unimpeded.
The problem is what happens after you’ve established that ideal of using force to only ensure everyone maintains their basic rights. Without a way to prevent it from being co-opted, it inevitably becomes an even bigger evil. Now I’ve traded stepping out of my bunker and getting shot for my watch with having my bunker ransacked because I didn’t keep up on my monthly dues. Clearest example is every country that’s ever adopted communism, but you can even look at what happened to the American colonies immediately after forming a central government - higher taxes and stolen land (and I’m not talking about the Indians), not to mention what’s it’s become today.
I hope it isn’t dismissive of Stallman’s contributions to OSS to say his idealism has the same glaring issues as communism. That it basically ignores incentive structures altogether and replaces them with the social pressure of “just do the right thing”. It’s kind of exhausting too when people who already make a great living and have basically just traded more money for social clout and moral authority lecture everyone else with “it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to build a business to support your family, what matters is this idealism, and if you disagree you’re a bad person”. I’m as happy as the next guy that open source won, but clearly it was only ever going to happen for business reasons and not social pressure and idealistic reasons (even if those were instrumental early on).
I would say that the "permissive" licenses are the ones that ignore incentive structures and expect people to contribute back because of feelies (if you think that works, I encourage you to go boot a copy of PureDarwin). GPL on the other hand is a brilliant hack of copyright law that has extremely successfully aligned business incentive structures to the point that Microsoft is a Linux contributor.
I really think you are selling Stallman's pragmatism short. While he very laudably tries to live by his own principles as uncompromisingly as possible, it's clear that he sees social systems as things to be engineered, with moral pressure being but one tool of many. Certainly his grasp of such systems is not perfect. But I think he's done astoundingly well for a reclusive, autistic nerd with no social skills.
I would argue that it is way easier to build a business around GPL licence than MIT.
I think the subject at hand is different from what you are writing.
What you are saying doesn't apply to the debate between permissive licenses and copy left licenses.
It does - he’s talking about the philosophical difference between free software and open source, and I’m criticizing the moral argument he makes with regard to free software. If somebody decides to use GPL because they want to prevent others from copying their work and competing against them (which actually seems less open/free? besides the point) then that’s a pragmatic/economic reason, not a moral/idealistic reason. They would still be in the “open source” camp even if their license was written by Stallman.
> which actually seems less open/free? besides the point
You can't have freedom (or at least won't have it for long) if others have the freedom to take it away from you.
Copyleft gives you every possible freedom, except the freedom to withold those freedoms from the next person that comes along. It's not just a way to give freedom, it's a way to enforce it.
You could say that anarchy, where everyone is free to do everything, is the ultimate freedom. Then you step out of your bunker and get shot because someone wanted your shiny watch. So we trade a few freedoms in exchange for being able to enjoy the rest of them unimpeded.
The problem is what happens after you’ve established that ideal of using force to only ensure everyone maintains their basic rights. Without a way to prevent it from being co-opted, it inevitably becomes an even bigger evil. Now I’ve traded stepping out of my bunker and getting shot for my watch with having my bunker ransacked because I didn’t keep up on my monthly dues. Clearest example is every country that’s ever adopted communism, but you can even look at what happened to the American colonies immediately after forming a central government - higher taxes and stolen land (and I’m not talking about the Indians), not to mention what’s it’s become today.