On Wednesday 27 February 2008 17:13:41 Dave Crossland wrote: > Software freedom is very tightly defined - > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Actually that is just one definition of software freedom. Just because you don't agree with others doesn't mean there is only one definition. You have been around long enough to know that not everyone actually agrees with the definition you refer to above, viewing it as either too limited or too constrictive depending on the groups discussing it. Heck there are multiple definitions of the word freedom in itself. The OED for example lists 15 main definitions of the word, and if you include the sub/alternate in each it lists 25 definitions in total. Furthermore, "freedom" itself is a philosophical concept, something that's been argued back and forth by philosophers for millenia, right back to the ancient greeks and probably before as well - that's just the earliest that generally gets discussed - the idea can be traced back to the earliest writings in Sumerian. The definition you refer to above is clearly based on Kant's ethics which are historically & philosophically speaking a relatively new invention/concept. (evidence for this is in the GNU manifesto for example, since it refers to Kant's law of universaility) Other bases for ethics including for example the stoics (or neo-stoic) gives a rock solid, 100% ethical definition of freedom which when applied to software would probably give rise to a definition which would mean the BSD license is "more free" than the GPL license because it does not seek to exert power over the recipient. Now, just because it's 100% ethical doesn't mean it's something you agree with or have to. After all, most of the world's religions can probably make the same claim, and the chances of everyone picking the same religion (or lack thereof) are next to none. (it's a relevant comment because you could probably write an interesting essay comparing and contrasting similarities and differences of philosophical - rather than religious - points raised by the stoics and buddists for example) Yes, the BSD leaves the recipient the ability to exert power over others, but a BSD user is explicitly waiving that option (unlike a GPL user) to exert power over others (as they should have freedom to do so). Also, the fact that there are still BSD licensed TCP/IP stacks after nearly 30 years, that would tend to suggest that the negative impact is less than you might expect. (matching the stoic concept of dispreferred rather than that of good/evil) I suspect that the reason for that is the very simple fact that people are free to produce alternative implementations to achieve the same goals. (meaning the really preferred aspect here is openly implementable standards - which of course requires access to said standards) Anyway that's a digression - you are saying above that you use a commonly referred to definition, however it is not the only one in use. Saying that any single definition of freedom is "correct", and "defined as right" misses the fact that it's one of the most contested concepts in history, mainly because everyone wants it for the obvious reasons. I'd like the freedom to run whatever software I like on my own machine I like for example, without people dogmatically telling me I'm wrong for doing so. Even if I choose to use a proprietary program on a open source operating system. Sorry, I'm not wrong, it's my choice. You don't have to make the same choices. That's a form of freedom. Heck, it's another form of software freedom - "the choice to pick and choose whatever software I want to use". Furthermore, you can easily argue that there's nothing wrong with picking and choosing whatever tool is convenient and easy to prototype ideas that could be developed as services or tools, since that's what the person doing it wants the freedom to do. However I feel (note: opinion) it would be only appropriate to ship as a *service* in a form that allows for multiple reimplementations. (the simplest way of course there to be to define an open definition for access to said service which can then evolve into and open standard) Dogmatically going around *judging* other people's views on a very simplist narrow view of freedom smacks to me of not be able to have independent thought. Which is odd, because you don't normally come across that way, when you do think for yourself. Michael. -- NB: All the above is opinion and my opinion at that. Opinions do get swayed and revised, and its entirely possible that others may share these opinions, but as far as I know they're not my employer's :-) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
