[TriLUG] Where is Linux today?

Cristóbal Palmer cmp at cmpalmer.org
Mon Jun 23 20:15:56 EDT 2008


On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 3:17 PM, Tanner Lovelace <clubjuggler at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> In addition, you don't have to deal with kernel politics or distributions
> making a statement by not including codecs (which I applaud their
> stance, btw, but I just like things to work) or any of that stuff that
> just gets tired after so long.

Here's where I get to quote from page 133 of Clay Shirky's new book,
/Here Comes Everybody/ [0]:

""
There's an increasing amount of evidence, in fact, that specific parts
of our brain are given over to making economically irrational but
socially useful calculations. In one well-known experiment, called the
Ultimatum game, two people divide ten dollars between them. The first
person is given the money and can divide it between the two of them in
any way he likes; the only freedom the second person has is to take or
leave the deal for both of them. Pure economic rationality would
suggest that the second person would accept any split of the money,
down to a $9.99-to-$.01 division, because taking even a penny would
make him better off than before. In practice, though, the recipient
would refuse to accept a division that was seen as too unequal (less
than a $7-to-$3 split, in practice) even though this meant that
neither person received any cash at all.

""

I highly recommend this book, btw.

It's more than just a stance when Fedora refuses to include codecs.
How exactly would the Fedora Project pay for the licenses? How exactly
would they comply with licenses that forbid redistribution? Red Hat is
a US company and is more than kinda-sorta bound by US law. Apple is
making money on units that they ship, and they only have to pay for
licenses on those units. The Fedora Project doesn't get income from
each ISO download or bittorrent seed, so how exactly would paying for
per-user or per-download licenses scale?

Furthermore, when your commitment is to Free/Libre, how do you square
that with distinctly non-free licenses? Respectfully, it's quite a bit
more than a stance. It's a public commitment on licenses. It's a
public commitment on patents. It's working for what many of us believe
is right and not just what's easy in the short term. Yes, there's some
cost and inconvenience tied to that commitment. I think the fight is
worth that short-term cost. That may not be an economically rational
stance.

What you're saying is that being okay with closed, proprietary
software means you don't have to worry with the pesky consequences of
a commitment to free and open source software, but you're proud of
just how much free and open source software is part of the Macs that
ship from apple and that is available for Macs. I guess I don't quite
follow that mix of emotional appeal and rational calculation. Is there
a magic percentage of a system that will make it "free enough" for
you? 85% of the LOC? Or is there some demarcation between the kernel
and userspace, non-free stuff being okay in userspace? Or maybe it's
by function? Non-free stuff is okay when it has to do with sound?
Because I don't understand. Where is closed, proprietary software okay
under your logic?

To be fair, I do used some closed, proprietary software: flash. I
justify this to myself on the grounds that Adobe gives the flash
player away to end users freely and has put in the effort to make a
player that "works" with my system. I don't like that I do this and it
feels like cheating, but the open players that I've tried choke far
more often than the Adobe player, and the vast majority of the video
on the blogs I read is in a flash container. Hopefully the near future
will bring with it more openness and a fully free flash player that
works with all the major flash video services.

Or we could talk about game consoles. Is closed, proprietary software
there okay? Personally, I'm not terribly worried that game consoles
are closed platforms and that the purveyors of those platforms do a
fair bit of work to keep them that way (with the notable, interesting
exception of many parts of the PS3). Why am I not worried? Game
consoles are a concern of rich kids, and I personally don't think that
people who don't use game consoles are missing anything terribly
important.

So, how's this for a summary of where most people on the list stand:
"I like as much free software as I can get, and when it's reasonably
convenient (eg. in the context of a file server), I'll go ALL FREE. If
it's going to mean any personal investment of energy, though, I'd
rather buy and put up with some closed software." Is that a fair
characterization? If that's the case, then I ask you: what happens
when big companies like Microsoft are able to change the legal
landscape to add inconveniences that tilt your rational, economic
calculus? You now have to pay $5 where you had to spend nothing before
to get the same functionality. But $5 is nothing. What about $50?
$100? What's your price? At what point does it stop being an
inconvenience and start being a matter of principle or emotion?

I'm asking honestly and sincerely. Where do you draw the line and say
That's Not Right?

Choosing Free Software in the context of a file server is about a
rational cost decision. /Refusing/ closed software when no viable Free
equivalent exists is a socially useful calculation.

Cheers,
-- 
Cristóbal M. Palmer
"Small acts of humanity amid the chaos of inhumanity provide hope. But
small acts are insufficient."
    -- Paul Rusesabagina

[0] http://tinyurl.com/5zsrwu [Amazon.com link; I'll get a cut if you buy]


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