On 06/08/2012 08:46 PM, Matt Giuca wrote:
ESR has put up a brilliant (IMHO) blog post about the importance of
essentially "picking your battles". He says:
A common failure mode in human reasoning is to become too attached to
theory, to the point where we begin ignoring the reality it was intended to
describe. The way this manifests in ethical and moral reasoning is that we
tend to forget why we make rules – to avoid harmful consequences. Instead,
we tend to become fixated on the rules and the language of the rules, and
end up fulfilling Santayana’s definition of a fanatic: one who redoubles
his efforts after he has forgotten his aim.
I think this is often quite true of open source -- that we really don't *
need* open source everything. He defines a vague scale in various
dimensions for cataloguing the harms of closed source software, and
concludes that while some software types (desktop and smartphone operating
systems, communications and productivity tools) really *must* be open
source to protect our freedoms as computer users, it isn't quite so
necessary for others (microwave firmware, games), and therefore, it is not
so hypocritical for a free software supporter to play proprietary games.
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Closed source only serves one purpose, profit. That's fine, but if I'm
not personally profiting, then why would I argue for that side? You
could say that because of profit, people are able to develop software
which they might not develop by any other means, again, true, but again,
not my problem.
Tools which people can modify, learn and adapt are tools which empower
people. Tools which people cannot modify, and are controlled by others
are tools which disempower people.
Farcebook is a classic example of a tool which disempowers people. You
lose the relative autonomy and freedom you had with e-mails/SMS and you
sell your autonomy to Zuckerberg. If someone doesn't like your
politics, they can get you kicked off Farcebook and you lose your social
connections.
Ivan Illich in "Tools of Conviviality" wrote..
"People need not only to obtain things, they need above all the freedom
to make things among which they can live, to give shape to them
according to their own tastes, and to put them to use in caring for and
about others. Prisoners in rich countries often have access to more
things and services than members of their families, but they have no say
in how things are to be made and cannot decide what to do with them.
Their punishment consists in being deprived of what I shall call
“conviviality.” They are degraded to the status of mere consumers. "
So I'm more a Stallmanite. The loss of freedom over ones own situation,
the loss of power over the use of your own tools far outweighs in cost,
the gains that flashier proprietary software gives.
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