[pp.int.general] Why Free Software misses the point

[Radosław Nadstawny]

Dnia 2010-05-12, o godz. 20:51:29
Andrew Norton <ktetch at gmail.com> napisał(a):

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> On 5/12/2010 8:32 PM, Radosław Nadstawny wrote:
> > Dnia 2010-05-12, o godz. 23:08:34
> > Boris Turovskiy <tourovski at gmail.com> napisał(a):
> > 
> >> Ahoi,
> >> I've finally finished my critical article on Mr.Stallman's and the
> >> FSF's viewpoint. It may be of interest for Pirate Parties which
> >> have difficulties with accepting FSF's philosophical reasoning
> >> while not knowing what their answer should be.
> >>
> >> http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Benutzer:TurBor/Stellungsnahmen/Why_Free_Software_misses_the_point
> >>
> >> Best regards,
> >> Boris
> >> ____________________________________________________
> >> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> >> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> >> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
> > 
> > 
> > I know what's the viewpoint of a casual user here - he/she wants a
> > tool to do the job and do it well, with minimal effort on user's
> > side. It's understandable and perfectly OK.
> > 
> > But consider the fact, that with most of proprietary software, you
> > can't really know, whether your tool, while performing its job, is
> > not secretly acting against you - e.g. spying on you. It's a matter
> > of trust - whether you trust your tools' providers enough.
> > 
> 
> And who do you put your trust in with free software? some anon coders?
> unless you check every single line of code first, all the time, you
> have no trust. You can't turn around and say 'he said it was ok' and
> expect it to mean anything - for all you know, he's the one that
> slipped in the bad code.

With free software, I don't have to resort to trusting in every
developer's good will. Everyone can view the code. Given enough users
and contributors, the bad code can be easily discovered and corrected.
This is the process that's proven effective (e.g. Linux). I know that
it can fail sometimes, but it fails rather rarely.

> 
> > The choice between proprietary and free software is often one
> > between convenience and security. These two almost never go
> > together, so it's a natural tradeoff. I can only hope that as free
> > software's development progresses, the only significant difference
> > remaining between it and proprietary software will be the one of
> > security.
> > 
> > As for me, I don't trust corporations. They have no conscience, no
> > sense of guilt. Their sole purpose of existence is making money, by
> > all means they can get away with. History confirms it well. So, I
> > prefer using free software whenever possible.
> > 
> 
> On the other hand, they are a legal entity that accepts responsibility
> (willingly or not) for their code. If it does something really bad,
> they will be made to pay. You can't say the same about free software.
> If office does bad things, I can sue MS, ditto photoshop with Adobe or
> Solidworks with Solidworks Inc. Who is accepting responsibility for,
> say, Inkscape? Who will be made to take responsibility for any mess
> that inkscape might cause? Answer  - no one. Proprietary software
> companies have that as an incentive NOT to do bad things. Whats the
> incentive to stop some person doing that with free software? There
> isn't one.

I'll disagree. They don't have the incentive of not doing bad things.
They have the incentive to make these bad things hard to discover or
prove. They can be held accountable, but *only* if someone discovers
some misfeatures in their products and can prove it in court. If the
chances for it to happen are low, or rewards outweigh possible losses,
they won't be scared by this. Unless you can afford an army of lawyers
half as big as theirs, you will have little chance to make them "feel"
they've done bad.

> 
> You're left trusting people that have no legal responsibility, no
> ramifications if you trusted them unwisely. No guarentee that they're
> even capable of makign a statement to be trusted. How many would trust
> me, if I said a piece of free software was clean and great and secure?

Well, I like to choose myself who do I put my trust in. Fortunately,
legal responsibility is not the only valid reason to trust others.

> 
> Andrew
> 
> > 
> > Radek
> > ____________________________________________________
> > Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> > pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> > http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
> 
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> ____________________________________________________
> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general