How did the ideology of libre/free software get so politicized?

I’ve noticed advocates for exclusively for libre software and actively discourage simple open source software for not going far enough, also want censorship of not allowing any proprietary software to be mentioned, and don’t allow any critiques of the software they use because it’s libre software so there are no faults or bad designs.

I thoroughly enjoy the code purity of what is labelled as libre software, for license I only like the ISC license for freedom. My attitude is if someone changes my code and doesn’t give back, it does not harm me or injury me in any way.

I also believe libre software can be used for the surveillance of other people, libre software does not be default mean privacy. How network software is configured in systems that other people don’t control, it doesn’t matter if it’s open source when people have no knowledge of other networks configuration.

On the principal of freedom, I do support the right to develop proprietary software. The fact that it exists does not harm anyone who chooses not to use proprietary software.

It seems the die hard libre software crowd, not open source people but the ones who want to live in an only GPLv3+ world can start to live in ther own world, their own bubble, and become disconnected losing perspective that which software other people use is not something that should affect your day in any way. Unless someone is both a network engineer and does infosec or something similiar, they’re not in a position to understand fully appreciate how network protocols matter more than a license and code availability.

  • catacomb@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I’ve noticed advocates for exclusively for libre software and actively discourage simple open source software for not going far enough, also want censorship of not allowing any proprietary software to be mentioned, and don’t allow any critiques of the software they use because it’s libre software so there are no faults or bad designs.

    I mean, proprietary software isn’t popular with people who strongly advocate for free and open source software. At the same time, lots of companies criticize FOSS. Shall we talk about that too? Either way, they have no obligation to cater to you.

    I thoroughly enjoy the code purity of what is labelled as libre software, for license I only like the ISC license for freedom. My attitude is if someone changes my code and doesn’t give back, it does not harm me or injury me in any way.

    It may or may not harm you, it depends. It will probably harm the user. Namely; some software is inherently monopolistic. For example, operating systems are monopolistic because targeting more than one is hard for many applications and so we target the few most popular. If you create an OS with a permissive license and it becomes popular, whoever manages to create the most popular fork of it has the power to close the source, drop compatibility and form a monopoly because application developers want to target the most popular fork and users want to run those applications so will use the most popular fork. Whether the owner of the fork did most of the work on the OS or not, they get to reap the rewards of the monopoly. How is that fair or beneficial to anyone in this situation except the owner of the monopolistic fork? How are people supposed to reliably share a standard with each other if the draw bridge can be raised any time major popularity is achieved? The problem here is, only proprietary forks have the ability to do this. You have to actively deny or limit proprietary forks to stop this situation. It depends on the application but the choice of license can have huge implications.

    I also believe libre software can be used for the surveillance of other people, libre software does not be default mean privacy.

    Yes there are examples of this and we fork those projects to not include tracking for those who care enough about it. Can you do that with proprietary software?

    On the principal of freedom, I do support the right to develop proprietary software. The fact that it exists does not harm anyone who chooses not to use proprietary software.

    How does the existence of FOSS infringe on your right to create proprietary software? If you mean that people at the FSF disagree with you, that’s just a disagreement. Maybe their personal view is extreme and against your personal liberties but that’s not the same as software freedom.

    It seems the die hard libre software crowd, not open source people but the ones who want to live in an only GPLv3+ world can start to live in ther own world, their own bubble, and become disconnected losing perspective that which software other people use is not something that should affect your day in any way.

    Unless I missed something, these people are advocates and haven’t made some kind of law banning proprietary software. Use whatever you like. I mean, it only gets difficult if someone exclusively uses FOSS and you only accept contact via iMessage. Though, if you disagree that much, maybe you shouldn’t be in contact.

    Maybe you’ve just found the folks at the FSF have some extreme views? Please consider, what would it say if Richard Stallman waltzed into a presentation holding an iPad? They kind of have to take the most extreme view, they’d be pretty shoddy advocates otherwise.