Re: Vertically Integrated Permaculture Mosaic
Repost from libreplanet-discuss, where we've already talked about this briefly, because I'd like to hear thoughts: [Patrick had been asked how this is relevant on an FSF list] This extends User Freedom into the physical realm, where Free Software must always be hosted. WellI'm not sure we can consider these two categories to be the same. Digital freedom has to do with the freedom to use your own tools, things you own, any way you'd like. This is the same as allowing people to use hammers to create anything, even picket signs the hammer manufacturers may disagree with. The hammer can also be disassembled, modified, and reassembled easily. Anyone who wants to show off the hammer's design may do so. What you're discussing here isn't about individual freedoms, it's about changing the economic system in which we live. We would technically own the MOP, but we wouldn't then be free to go in and tinker--people need their milk, so going in and accidentally breaking the dairy machines would be suboptimal. There would almost certainly be laws, or at least rules, to prevent such things. I mean, there might be some merit to these ideas, but it's not something that the FSF necessarily wants to promote. As far as I can tell, the FSF tries to reach out to companies, saying that free software is compatible with viable business models that work in a capitalist society. And in general, as free software advocates, it's a lot harder for us to fight for individual freedoms *and* massive social change at the same timebest to stick with what we know, especially since digital freedom would (probably) work in either situation. Anyway, those are my two pennies. Sorry to go on so long about an ostensibly off-topic post :) -- Mark Holmquist Contractor, Wikimedia Foundation mtrac...@member.fsf.org http://marktraceur.info ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
Re: Wikipedia
On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 06:48:28PM +0200, Solal wrote: Wikipedia have an amoral approach of what is an encyclopedia. For example, Wikipedia rejects the use of the real name GNU/Linux in articles about this system because GNU/Linux is often called Linux. Actually they call the article Linux because the system is *commonly* called Linux, as referred to by WP:COMMONNAME[0]. If you disagree, you need to come up with citations that show consensus in the broader public that the system is called GNU/Linux by a broader audience. The archived talk page on this topic has lots of evidence to support the reverse case. You'll note that Wikipedia happily redirects from [[GNU/Linux]][1] to [[Linux]], so you can use either one in URLs and wikilinks. But I fail to see how this is amoral. What you're describing seems to simply be a *different* set of morals from your own, or a different set of priorities that encompass many of the same morals. They have decided that their mission is to provide a neutral, understandable encyclopedia to the greatest number of people possible. For this purpose, they use a name that the most people possible will understand. Non-free software is an example of that amoral approach and thrives on it. Thus, in the long run it would be self-defeating for freedom to adopt that approach. Wikipedia uses this amoral approach, and makes it a rule. How is the linked policy ([0] in this email) at all amoral? Wanting e.g. Bill Clinton as the article title instead of the unrecognizable William Jefferson Clinton, even though the latter is more precise, seems like a very reasonable thing. Even if you could describe the policy as lacking morals, that would be a positive thing in the context of providing a neutral point of view for the article, so people are not swayed by one form of the argument or the other. This amoral approach is similar to the amoral open source approach of the FLOSS community. Again, I would love to see any support for your claim that the open source movement is amoral. Again I think they're simply focusing on different parts of the same philosophies, and it's unfair to so negatively brand them. We don't need to follow an identical path with them, but that doesn't mean we can't be civil and work towards a better world together. The free software movement isn't here to beat down everyone who disagrees on every little point. Please try to avoid rattling sabres at everyone in sight. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:COMMONNAME#Use_commonly_recognizable_names [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=GNU/Linuxredirect=no -- Mark Holmquist Associate Member, Free Software Foundation mtrac...@member.fsf.org ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
Re: Restrictware... But this is for help science, of course!
On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 10:58:51AM +0200, Solal wrote: I found a dangerous thing, a new excuse for restrictware creators to restrict freedom : We have not outsourced the client for several reasons, relating to client reliability and other issues. However, we?ve come up with a compromise ? we have been developing a plug in architecture to allow people to write open source (sic) code that we can plug into our client. Except that this isn't at all a new excuse; game developers have been doing this, particularly in the Flash game community, for many years. If you let people see and modify the client, the argument goes, then people will be able to cheat. Hilariously, people always find a way to cheat anyway, and you can see high scores of 9 on most Flash game high score tables. The general principle of trust, but verify should be pounded more reliably into the brains of programmers, especially ones dealing with distributed networks or server/client architectures :) -- Mark Holmquist Software Engineer, Multimedia Wikimedia Foundation mtrac...@member.fsf.org https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:MHolmquist signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
