Re: A Call for Unity

This is a response to Jason Self's Call for Unity in the free software community.

... It's a good idea. I think though, the problem is that a lot of the free software fountain does disagree on quite fundamental issues. The main, and obvious one, would be the distinction between copyleft and permissive licenses. Should we use licenses like MIT, which permits corporations to appropriate the unpaid labour of developers (and generally, never actually pay them for the work they do), or should we use exclusively licenses like the GNU GPL, which are more restrictive, and so in a way almost go against the idea of free software - it is less common domain, and more a separate type of software altogether, with its own binding obligations on redistributors, modifications etc.?

There are further issues too, like how to get funding into the free software world. Having free software is good, and necessary, and the product is a net benefit for the world. The problem is, developers still need to eat, and developing free software doesn't pay. That is how we see the rise of variations like open-core. Relying on companies to financially support their dependencies doesn't work; relying on people to, out of the goodness in their hearts, donate to the projects they depend upon also doesn't. Somehow, people have to be cajoled into paying.

Meanwhile, the "enemy" has a very clear goal. They profit, actually profit, and by a lot too, from their way of doing things. Restricting user's freedoms is profitable. Planned obsolescence is profitable. Appropriation of labour is profitable. They can use the profits they make to do more of the same.

The free software movement has a problem: the system it is rooted in is financial in nature. You can cultivate the skills to build your own house, and that's all well and good. It doesn't pay the council tax, though.

Meanwhile, making millions from explotative practices, does pay the council tax - and it pays the legal fees at the same time.

The problem is one as old as time: power, and money. I don't think free software has the scope to address either of these issues. And as long as free software developers are powerless and poor, there will always be strife in the free software world.