Although the title is the same as the one from the article it links to, it is not what he says. He says there are both good and bad things about it. It's good if it stops you using Windows. He still categorises what Steam is doing as unethical.
That seems to be a departure somewhat from the very doctrinal "you have to use all free software or it doesn't matter" (my paraphrasing). By this logic, Ubuntu is good, running GNU/Linux on whatever not-completely-free platform you have is good etc. etc. It's very pragmatic and I agree fully - I just didn't expect RMS to be so pragmatic.
He's long had a bit of that game-theoretic view, that it may be worth compromising if you don't think you can win a given situation with a hardline approach. That's the reason for the existence of the LGPL, for example, which is recommended to be used in cases where the quasi-ultimatum of the GPL wouldn't be a successful strategy:
Using the ordinary GPL is not advantageous for every library. There are reasons that can make it better to use the Lesser GPL in certain cases. The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any particular advantage, so it is better to use the Lesser GPL for that library.
This is why we used the Lesser GPL for the GNU C library. After all, there are plenty of other C libraries; using the GPL for ours would have driven proprietary software developers to use another—no problem for them, only for us.
I don't think even Stallman is that doctrinaire. His attitude has always been free software is good, and proprietary software is bad; people's software use can be anything from all free to all proprietary; and anything that lets you ascend the gradient towards more free software increases your ethical standing.
In the 80s and 90s he even recommended to his lieutenants to purchase copies of proprietary software -- so they can begin work on free replacements.
I'd say it's still not very pragmatic, he admits the existence of the games is a good thing, however it's at the end where he recommends that people don't recommend the games in support of Linux that he kind of reverts to previous philosophy.
Many people don't. One of his core opinions is that the production/distribution of any non-free software is unethical. You can agree or disagree with him, but at least he explains and backs up his arguments with logic.
His logic is perfectly valid for justifying is own feelings about it.
But his reason for getting up in arms about other people doing things differently seems to just be that he's a nosy noser who can't keep his nose out of what goes on among consenting adults in situations that don't really involve him.
(edit: Well, that and if he changed his tack his career would be over. Having chosen to make his living on the lecture circuit rather than getting paid to write software, he's essentially relinquished his freedom to re-examine or temper his own opinions. At least not publicly.)
Reading your post I'm lead to believe that you haven't read (or properly understood) his philosophical stance.
You say: "he's a nosy noser who can't keep his nose out of what goes on among consenting adults in situations that don't really involve him"
Yet, proprietary software development and the accompanying restrictions on related freedoms impacts us all. Any time someone creates a proprietary computer program it restricts everyone's ability to freely interact with it.
You may disagree with his conclusion; you may believe it is OK to claim property-like control over intangible, intellectual constructs. But you cannot say that this control does not affect others. You cannot say that it does not affect him.
The very nature of copyright is to limit the freedom of all other persons with respect to a particular work.
Any time someone creates a proprietary computer program it restricts everyone's ability to freely interact with it.
This is exactly the point that I don't think can be justified unless you're nosy. Before the proprietary app was created, it didn't exist. By any practical measure, the distinction between a software developer not creating an app at all, and creating it but only being willing to share it under terms that are unacceptable to a given person is nil. Regardless of how you get there, not having the app is not having the app.
Proprietary software licensing is just a type of contract. And like any other contract, it only applies to people who voluntarily choose to enter into it. And the ability of individuals to freely enter into agreements whereby they exchange goods and services, perhaps subject to additional conditions, is an essential feature of free society. If nobody's forcing you to enter into the contract, then your freedom is intact.
On the other hand, pressuring those to whom the contract is acceptable to avoid entering it suggests a lack of respect for the freedoms of those who disagree with oneself. Just as assuming that someone who doesn't agree with you just doesn't understand your position suggests a more general lack of respect for those who disagree with oneself.
"Regardless of how you get there, not having the app is not having the app."
This sentiment is a great example of how you're missing the point. It isn't about having an app. It isn't about getting things.
It's about freedom of expression. Intellectual control laws - Patents and Copyright - both work by preventing individuals from creating or sharing their own intellectual work, or sharing a work they have observed. That is quite literally their only function. Without Copyright I am free to create and share anything I can imagine. With Copyright, I am forbidden from creating certain kinds of works, and I am forbidden from sharing certain kinds of communications regarding works I have observed.
If, in the absence of Copyright, you simply neglect to create a work then my freedom of expression remains unencumbered. This is the nature of the freedom Stallman seeks to defend.
Your mention of contracts again indicates you do not understand the essence of this issue. Contracts are entered into willingly, between consenting participants. Copyright however, does not come in the form of a contract. It is an intellectual shackle which restricts the freedom of every person to create works based on what they observe, whether they like it or not. The licensing you refer to is a merely a mechanism to loosen the already-existing shackle of Copyright -- for a price.
If we're talking about banning copyright altogether, that seems to go well beyond Stallman's position. His objection to these kinds of restrictions seems to only extend to software. (e.g., "Game art is a different issue, because it isn't software.")
You also seem to deeply misunderstand his position on copyright. Far from only functioning to "prevent individuals from creating or sharing their work", Stallman himself writes his essay "Misinterpreting Copyright" that he sees the function of copyright as a way to benefit end-users by incentivizing people to create and share their work. And with this I agree with Mr. Stallman - and apparently disagree with you - wholeheartedly.
The point where our opinions diverge is whether this goal is served or hindered by closed-source software. RMS contends that software is a sort of special case. He gives all sorts of reasons which are largely valid complaints, but ultimately he has failed to see the forest for the trees. His complaints are only of much note to a small elite of hackers like ourselves - for the vast majority of the population, they simply do not outweigh the advantages that he agrees justify the existence of copyright in any other situation. As far as most people are concerned, the kind of software that is produced most plentifully when motivated by the profit incentive that copyright is designed to create has improved people's quality of life to an extent that public domain software can match only under what history has shown to be a very limited set of circumstances. Oftentimes those circumstances relegate it to a critical but, one must admit, supporting role - SQLite has done much for a lot of people, but it tends to do the most when it's sitting behind commercial software. And in those situations public domain (or even Free) software is a very good thing.
But I don't get the impression that RMS particularly cares about that consideration - he's much more worried about his own desires as a hacker, and he's willing to tell other people that their desires as members of the technological laity are immoral in the service of those desires. Or perhaps he just doesn't see what he's doing. Either way he's never been opposed to copyright as you suggest. He's actually rather a fan of copyright. He just doesn't like it when it's keeping him out of the source code.
Now if we wanted to discuss whether copyright protections last for an order of mangitude longer than they should (which they do), or whether laws governing the enforcement of copyright are draconian (which they are), that would be different. And, incidentally, that's another spot where I wholeheartedly agree with the Free Software Foundation's position.
I didn't say anything about banning copyright; I didn't express my own position at all.
Frankly I'm at a loss as to your point, or how it is relevant. You seem to be jumping between various argumentative positions as they crumble away. It's clear you'd really like to discredit RMS, but beyond that I don't know what you're trying to achieve.
I'd rather not argue with you. I'm just here to explain the problem with your initial position and I've already done that.
> Any time someone creates a proprietary computer program it restricts everyone's ability to freely interact with it.
That depends on what the alternative was. Any time someone creates a proprietary computer program, there are restrictions on how it is used - that's what proprietary means - but a situation of a proprietary program existing is less constrained than a situation of no program existing: you still have the option to not use that kind of program or write a free one but now you also have the option to use the proprietary one. Where constraints are created is the choice to release the given program as non-FOSS.
You may not be able to write a free one if the proprietary version has patents you'd infringe upon. The existence of the proprietary version can preclude other options being legal.
To learn from and improve our tools is the heart of our species. They've consented to not behaving as adults, and it's grossly hindered progress in a field of growing importance.
Personally, I don't see games the same as other software. Generally, they are more like content (movies, music, etc). Especially in the world of game consoles, where the games come on read only discs.
Games that are able to be "modded" of course add additional value and surely open source games would only expand the possibility, but there aren't the same concerns of my work and data being locked away in a proprietary ecosystem. If a game from 10 years ago stops working, it is disappointing, but not debilitating.
A great point. The counter argument would be the recent development with drm that requires online authentication to run, so they can't be sold and will stop working at some point, most likely within 5-10 years.
"so they can't be sold and will stop working at some point, most likely within 5-10 years."
This is incorrect, it would be more correct to say that they could stop working at some point.
It's entirely possible (and has been done before) for the company to patch out the DRM before turning servers off or going defunct.
The internet is also full of no-cd cracks that generally circumvent this kind of always-on protection (at the expense of breaking multiplayer) without circumventing serial code or other protections.
It's not about what kind of software they are considered, it's about code running on your system. In the RMS eyes, if code runs on your system, and you can't read/modify that code yourself, it's unethical.
I agree in principle certainly, I do prefer general openness (e.g even if your engine stays closed, allow a modding API or GPL the whole thing after X number of years ala id software) in games but I'm generally less concerned as long as the user experience is good (i.e not too dependant on third party services like "games for windows").
I guess though Richard would object on the principle that a closed source game can still do things that are "user hostile", for example DRM systems that have implications outside of the game playing (see the recent ubisoft vulnerability). You can also have places where the lines between "games" and "software" becomes murky (I guess minecraft might fit here, also graphics libraries like OpenGL that are primarily used for games but also have other uses).
There is also the issue that games can act as an attractive trojan horse to get people to use a closed platform (for example Xbox 360 exclusive games) and become used to closedness in software.
In theory Steam helps address the second problem, though from Richards point of view this could become a double edged sword. If Steam becomes too popular on Linux then it might become the preferred way for software vendors to package Linux software and popular programs stop bothering to offer standard .tgz or .deb versions and the platform as a whole starts to revolve around a closed source offering.
This is another area where I prefer Raymond's open-source consequentialism to Stallman's free software deontology. Raymond actually takes the time to evaluate the harms (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4371) we anticipate from closed source software, and shows why we can expect a greater harm from OS or productivity software than from games or elevator firmware.
(Game art is a different issue, because it isn't software.)
Would anyone be able to explain why RMS has this stance? Game art is just bits and bytes, and are thus recreate-able by others (think of old school sprites for example), why is that so different from code?
> Specifically, free software means users have the four essential freedoms: (0) to run the program, (1) to study and change the program in source code form, (2) to redistribute exact copies, and (3) to distribute modified versions.
Not all these freedoms make sense for "non-functional work" like art. RMS outlines some of his views here: http://www.libervis.com/article/rms_on_the_ethics_of_non_fre... Paraphrasing, art (as opposed to software) is something contributed to society for enjoyment, software is for work. The minimal freedom of art should be shareable for non-commercial uses, with a max copyright of 10 years before people can create derivative works for commercial use.
I imagine there might be (or could be) a license that asks for the "source" of art assets; that is, a .PSD file, or a blender project, or a script that generates the image. That's a lot more useful to me than the final image itself, and a lot easier to modify if I wanted.
Paraphrasing, art (as opposed to software) is something contributed to society for enjoyment, software is for work.
How is a game for work? To qualify this, I don't necessarily disagree completely with RMS' aims for free and open software, but I don't see the functional distinction between the functionality of a game and the art used in the game.
Here's the non-paraphrased portion (which I should have just copied verbatim beforehand, I suppose):
"If you use something to do jobs in your life, you must be free
to change it today, and then distribute your changed version today
in case others need what you need.
"Art contributes something different to society. You appreciate it.
Modifying art can be a further contribution to art, but it is not
crucial to be able to do that today. If you had to wait 10 years
for the copyright to expire, that would be ok."
So it's more that a program is a tool for work, such as simulating physics, running an AI state machine, animating skeletons, or rendering polygons, while art is just there to look at. You could argue that the game isn't complete without both, and you'd be right, but the art can be swapped out for random pixels and the game will still work whereas the code cannot be swapped with random other code. The functional distinction comes from software being breakable, it's a machine. Art isn't really breakable, it's just ugly (to some people).
If the physics engine of a Free game has a bug, users could fix it themselves and announce their changes in case someone else hits that bug--or even report it to the game maker's public bug tracker with a patch. There's also a factor of urgency involved that I didn't mention in my paraphrasing. If a game is broken, it needs a patch ASAP. If it's just ugly (to some people), that doesn't really need to be fixed right away. Plus if non-commercial modification is allowed, people who find it ugly can release "better" versions (which may be new assets or may be a hack to the game engine that adds new shader programs).
It does seem to get more complicated in the video game world where sometimes the distinction between program and art is blurred. In a hypothetical game with a completely free engine, I'd expect the non-free "art" to consist of base graphics that are manipulated by the engine. The manipulating code is free (and will work for any piece of art fitting the requirements it has, which may be quite restrictive), the input to the engine is not.
> I imagine there might be (or could be) a license that asks for the "source" of art assets; that is, a .PSD file, or a blender project, or a script that generates the image. That's a lot more useful to me than the final image itself, and a lot easier to modify if I wanted.
This is used in the GPL :
"The “source code” for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."
And also in the "open source definition" that can be used to judge whether something is free software or not :
"The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program." [1]
Ah yes, I've seen some art works released under the GPL before. Do many professionals do this? Have any lawyers looked over the GPL enough to see if there's really no hurdles with using it for non-software?
I think that the GPL uses the term "derivative work" which is quite vague when it is not applied to code. Many software distributions encourage their upstream to use specific licenses such as one of the Creative Common licenses to cover art.
That's true for text too ; for example most pages on gnu.org are licensed under CC-BY-ND.
Unfortunately, as the -NC and -ND licenses add restrictions, some distributions such as Debian don't consider it free software (cf. [DFSG]).
If there would be such a license, one could still argue it offers not the most freedom possible.
To take it to the extreme, the license could ask that all assets have to be in a format editable/compatible with FOSS :)
I don't understand how someone can advocate freedom and also advocate any license at all. The act of licensing at all seems absolutely contrary to the idea of freedom.
As soon as someone stands up and tells me how I can or cannot use something, freedom is gone, no?
That's a bit like saying "America isn't a free country because I can't just murder whoever I want".
The GPL license does indeed restrict some things that could be regarded as freedoms, for example the freedom to distribute a closed source version (distribution only, you are allowed to create a closed source derivative as long you keep it to yourself).
It's a bit like "you have the freedom to do anything you want apart from restrict another person's freedom"
That's a bad analogy: America never promises freedom in her founding documents and constitution. She promises us Liberty, which is a very different concept than freedom.
In software, however, they are not arguing for liberty and the rule of law, they're arguing for true freedom.
I guess they have drawn a line in the sand and said that any less free is unacceptable, however, more free is also unacceptable.
I believe the FSF are interested in liberty rather than "true freedom" (at least in my understanding of the terms).
I believe Stallman originally wanted to call it "libre software" but there wasn't an equivalent word in english so instead he went with "free software" and thus the confusion was born.
The line in the sand the GPL draws is specifically for the purpose of preventing closed versions of open source software (which would be against the original authors wishes). There are of course more liberal licenses such as the MIT license which do allow you to do this.
This is basically the GPL vs. BSD/MIT/Apache vs. Public Domain debate. I've been on all sides at various points, currently I'm on the side of the GPL for "big stuff I want total copyright over (requiring people to sign copyright waivers)" which lets me change the license later or give out proprietary licenses at a fee. For other stuff that may be useful to someone and that I don't care about, I like the MIT license or the Do-what-the-fuck-you-want-version-3 license. If I don't care, I'll either forget to mention or it will be public domain.
The problem with public domain is that outside of the US, in some countries "public domain" is actually more restrictive than e.g. the MIT license. So if you want to help users worldwide, you either need to research local laws or use a simple US-law-based license.
The benefit of the GPL, as I like to phrase it, is that it chains its users with freedom whether they like it or not. It's a very viral license and infects a lot that it touches. (Some businesses are even worried that the GPLv3 is vague enough that "distribution" could mean over the web, which would make the AGPLv3 redundant.) If you look at Stallman's free software song, particularly the part that goes "When we have enough free software/at our call, hackers, at our call/we'll kick out those dirty licenses/evermore, hackers, evermore", you can interpret that as saying once enough software respects user freedoms by default, then yes, we don't need the concept of licenses anymore to force it upon them. The GPL uses copyright as a weapon, as do the Copyleft folks, as do the MIT/etc license folks. As a side quip, this is also similar to basic Communist philosophy: you just need totalitarian control for a little while to set everything up, then the government can dissolve itself and everyone will continue working together.
The MIT/etc. license folks subscribe to the idea that the more things you can do, the more freedom you have. While this is true as a single developer, if you again take into account the end-user freedom then the utilitarian argument can go either way. A program licensed under the GPL makes sure all users of that program and its derivatives are free, regardless of its popularity. A program licensed under the MIT leaves the door open for someone to take that code and put it into another program that's licensed under something restrictive, and all of that program's users are not free. However, some programs don't become popular precisely because of the (A)GPL, whereas an MIT project that's used in a popular project (regardless of that derivative project being MIT) often becomes popular itself.
So for the GPL, the total freedom utility is just num_users for the program and all its derivatives. For MIT, if a non-free user is as bad as a free user is good, it's num_users_under_free_license - num_users_under_nonfree. You can see what needs to be satisfied to choose one over the other. There's also a factor involved for profit if you or someone else wants to make money on the software without the risk of legal source-or-binary redistributions.
I think Stallman recognizes the tradeoffs as well, I've read somewhere he doesn't like but accepts the idea of software (such as video games) initially launching as proprietary while it's in its peak profit window (first few weeks for games, traditionally, though that is changing with DLC), and then later relicensing as open source. Same thing with dual licensing.
Read RMS on "the java trap" for an analogous situation in software. I think there's a consensus that it's worth making it possible to release GPL works even when they're written on a platform for which no Free tools exist.
RMS and the FSF take a fairly narrow view of what they push for freedom on: they only care about code. In my opinion, this stems from two issues.
First, I think that as people who write code, RMS and the FSF don't immediately see value in things other than code, and in particular don't see the value in supporting a community of developers around something other than code. If you don't know how to produce something, you might not see the value in making it open, because you personally don't have the ability to contribute to it. Many non-programmers don't immediately see the value in Free Software / Open Source Software, because they don't personally have the ability to contribute to it.
Second, the FSF has produced a large number of works of opinion, and they have rather specific thoughts about what they want done with those opinions, which for some reason they don't see as inconsistent with their views on software. Note that all of the essays on gnu.org/philosophy/ have a license that allows redistribution but not modification; in many different places, they've expressed the opinion that works of opinion need not have free licenses, because changing such works would change the opinions expressed.
Personally, this seems entirely wrong to me. If I take a copy of CSS3 and modify it, it no longer matches the CSS3 standard. However, I could still usefully use it for other purposes, such as talking about the implications of different CSS models, or making a proposal for what I'd like to see in CSS. And if for some reason I attempted to describe my modified version as CSS3 (or CSS3.1), that would make it no different than any other random bit of factual inaccuracy or buggy code on the Internet. The same goes for a modified version of a philosophical essay, or the script or art for a game.
If it's not source code, he doesn't care how closed or restricted it is. It's what the computer does, not what you do with what the computer does that is his interest.
I think you got it almost right. The distinction is between Software and other Media (Images, Sounds).
The Software has to be free because otherwise it could work against you (oversimplification).
'Source code' is misleading since, depending on how the artist produces the media, it technically might have source code without being user-run software (think vector grafics, MIDI with notes and synthesizer values, etc).
See http://freedomdefined.org/Definition for a view (not RMS's) which extends the spirit of the Free Software definition to "Cultural Works", including art, music, etc.
Creative Commons has adopted the language of "Free Culture Approved" for licenses which meet this definition. Not all CC licenses do (in particular, non-commercial or no derivatives clauses are incompatible).
That's fine for justifying the ability to view and modify source code for your own use, but his definition of free extends to being able to freely redistribute it.
What's the difference between that and being allowed to sample or re-edit music and video and redistribute it?
He's only interested in the redistribution of source code, that is where his definition of free ends. Simply license the code so you can and the art so you can't and RMS is find and dandy with it. Tight controls on artwork to make money off of is good but tight control on source code is evil.
The closest he gets to extending out of his little bubble is that copyright should be 10 years only and then everything is public.
I think there's a bigger picture that RMS seems to be missing. Simply look in the HN feed and you'll see that Square Enix is partnering with OUYA. OnLive is partnering with OUYA. Steam is coming to Linux. This is about cutting out the middle-man and bringing content to people without the enormous barriers to entry.
This is a coup in waiting and RMS is worried about whether content is free (or "nonfree" in his own words, both in terms of DRM and cost). This is greater freedom for producers of content and consumers alike, but not for tinkerers. It’s not the outcome that he wants but it could be one of the most important developments for open source platforms. He needs to step back and assess what’s more important - his rigid ideals or measurable progress for open source platforms.
As Lockyy stated, check out what he actually said here instead: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonfree-games.html