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FREE SOFTWARE CONFLICT

Brian Grainger

brianATgrainger1.freeserve.co.uk

There are lots of things to argue about in the Free software world and, boy, do the arguments gets heated. I am perplexed that even the most basic of ideas give rise to such acerbic comments. Yes, people have different views. Why can we not just respect each others views and get along without descending into a rant of illogical arguments? One issue that rears its head occasionally is the concept of 'Free' software itself and Richard Stallman - the founder of the Free Software Movement. It is these subjects that I want to consider in this article.

My thoughts turned again to this topic when two things, independent of each other, happened recently.

First, issue 171 of Linux Format magazine, (June 2013), included on its cover disk a video of 'A Free Digital Society'. This was a talk given to the University of Michigan by Richard Stallman in January of 2013. Lasting an hour and three quarters it runs through his beliefs regarding Free Software and the Movement he founded. These range from the now well known topics of (a) 'free as in freedom' versus 'free as in beer'; (b) 'free' versus 'open source' software; and (c) why Linux should be called GNU Linux. In the January talk he has expanded his discussion to bring in more recent phenomena that impact on freedom such as (a) cyber surveillance; (b) mobile phones that can be used to track an individual's location; (c) software that 'phones home; (d) digital rights management (e) software in the cloud; etc.

The second independent event occurred in the same week as I watched the Stallman video. Distrowatch Weekly, an online source of review and comment on mainly GNU Linux distributions, had a review of Trisequel. This is one of the few GNU Linux distributions that consists of ONLY 'free' software and as such is recommended by the Free Software Movement. Unfortunately, the reviewer introduced Trisequel as 'open source' software, rather than 'free' software. This started a range of comments in the accompanying blog. I found it disappointing that the reviewer defended the use of the 'open source' label and therefore disrespected the Trisequel project's stated aims. The comments themselves continued into the usual rant of what is 'free' software, whether totally 'free' software can actually be used and wasn't Stallman himself a bit of a weirdo and therefore wrong! There seemed to be only ONE guy, who went by the nom de plume of 'Magic Banana', who stood up for the views of Stallman against the rest.

As you may have already surmised, I am a supporter of Stallman, the Free Software Movement and 'free' software. I think it is very difficult to be unbiased in this situation as you either believe or you don't but I hope I present both sides objectively.

Let me first consider Stallman himself. As he is an American who rarely comes to the UK I have never seen or heard him in person before. I have read what he has written, of course, but my mental picture of the man is built up by the comments that I have read about him. That picture was of a forthright person who put his views strongly, a bit like a US evangelical preacher. If this was the case I could understand why someone would criticise what he said. Viewing the video was a revelation. He was nothing like this at all. His visual tics while talking were a bit strange, I have to admit. At one point he starting picking at his voluminous beard and then closely looked at his fingers as if he was viewing what he had extracted! This apart, he was quietly spoken and did not force his views in any way. More than once he did say 'you must, or must not, do this' without much further explanation beyond his reasons why he felt something was not 'free'. He did not seem to consider that some people do not care as much as he if their freedom is restricted. Nevertheless, such statements were again quietly spoken and not orders. It seemed to me he was providing guidance for his adherents rather than demands on those with other beliefs. My view of Stallman had been changed by watching the video. Rather than an evangelic preacher he was more like the put upon, world weary, vicar of the local church.

Stallman does not deserve the criticism he attracts. Your views may be different. So what? Let us accept that he and you have different beliefs and just get on with each other. He has a right to be heard and if you do not agree then come forward with logical reasons why he is wrong, rather than ranting.

I now come to the concept of Free software itself. I have spoken of this topic before online, (here at 081108fe.htm), and I am going to assume my readers know what Free software according to Richard Stallman seems to be about.

Two points come up time and again when the topic is discussed. The first is the confusion between free as in freedom and free as in no cost. It is unfortunate that a separate word cannot be used to make the distinction. Libre has been suggested, but it is too late to turn back time. It is the Free Software Movement not the Libre Software Movement. I'd rather they spend their cash on education about Free software than on a rebranding exercise! Developers in particular are concerned that Free software precludes them from earning money! I have covered that already in the previous article but I will emphasise something here. Some developers do like to do things for no charge. You could also develop Free software for nothing while earning your living doing something else. I used to do that when I developed things I was interested in - those with a long memory may remember my involvement with COMAL.

The second point comes from those that say Free software does not give you freedom because it does not give developers the freedom to repackage it and give/sell it back to you as non-Free software! This argument is specifically used against software that is distributed under the GPL (as defined by the Free Software Movement). I have to say, in this case, the argument is logical! Nevertheless, I personally cannot justify allowing the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Google to take our Free software and then after a trivial change making it non-free. That would defeat the object of why software should be free in the first place. It is worth pointing out that licences exist to distribute software with this added 'freedom' - the Apache licence is one - and it is common to see these licences being used by the big software companies and perhaps the little companies who hope in the future they might sell their brainwave to a big company for oodles of cash! OK - that last bit is very definitely a personal biased opinion!

The next topic of conflict is the distinction between Free software and Open Source software. People use the two terms synonymously, perhaps because the term Free is confused between freedom and no charge. I do it myself! Nevertheless, they are DIFFERENT. Free software will always be Open Source software but Open Source software will not necessarily be Free software. It is all down to the 4 Freedoms that Free software must adhere to. In order to meet these Freedoms the source must be open to view and therefore Free software will be Open Source software by default. Open source software does not have to meet the Freedoms however. For example the source code could be viewable but you may not be allowed or able to change it for your own needs. Such Open Source software would NOT be Free software. Quite often Open Source software is Free software as well, especially if developed in the community, but it should not be assumed this is the case. Big companies might open their code to view so that others might debug it at no cost to themselves but the actual changes will be made by the company, if they see fit.

As can be seen it was quite naughty of the Distrowatch Weekly reviewer to liken Trisequel to Open Source software - although it is - because the raison d'etre of Trisequel is that is Free, which encompasses much more than Open Source software.

Within the comment blog of the review attention turned to the usefulness of Trisequel. Trisequel has no non-free software, not in the basic package or in the repository of additional software. Now some hardware, notably graphics cards and wi-fi adaptors, are notorious for needing proprietary binary software (known as blobs) to function with GNU Linux. This would mean that Trisequel would not work with this hardware. It is the bane of GNU Linux that hardware is not developed with Linux in mind - only the latest version of Windows. If it works with GNU Linux then you are in luck but if not the manufacturer does not see this as a great problem. It usually falls to the Linux community to write free software drivers for the major hardware and ultimately it may get accepted into the Linux kernel. Of course, the hardware manufacturers are not standing still. They will create an improved version of their graphic card and then there is no guarantee that Linux will work with the improved version. The cycle continues ad infinitum. Of course, to the ranters it is the fault of Linux when it doesn't work with the hardware they might have. I wonder if they have owned a printer or scanner or some other hardware which worked fine with Windows and then found it doesn't work when they upgrade Windows. I have. It is a similar problem but the ranters don't blame Windows in this instance - they decide they need a new printer/scanner etc. If only they were so willing to buy new hardware to work with Linux! Any non-Windows operating system has the same problem. Apple solve it by taking control of the hardware as well as the software. This guarantees the combination works but gives the user less choice on what they can purchase and ensures that Apple can charge higher prices for the hardware. I think if Linux was to solve the problem they would have to do something similar. They would have to define a hardware standard and Linux would be written to work with that standard. However, you would still have to convince the manufacturers to create hardware to the standard.

Coming back to Trisequel, did it fall over because it had no non free software? Well, I have a standard Intel Core i5 series CPU with on-board graphics supplied by Intel. Everything worked fine. Admittedly, I do not have on-board wi-fi but this could be an advantage as I could go out and get a wi-fi dongle that was guaranteed to work with Linux. Companies exist to provide such hardware. There are bound to be problems for some of those with Nvidia or ATI Graphics but I've seen that with non-free GNU Linux distributions as well.

Another misconception is that people think that because a Free distribution will not include Flashplayer, or because the use of non-free codecs such as MP4 are discouraged, then Trisequel will be unable to play multimedia in these formats. When I tried Trisequel in the early days this was true but not any more. Trisequel includes Gnash the Free software equivalent of Flash. I threw every type of non-free media codecs at it - mp3, mp4, flv, wmv. It all worked. Flv would play without the need to use a browser and a plug-in - better than Windows then! Of course, Stallman's video was not in any of these formats but a Free format. Trisequel played that as well, unlike Windows Media Player.

Using the Live CD version of Trisequel LibreOffice was included, all in a desktop environment that was suited to a desktop computer with a mouse and keyboard rather than touch screen. I was impressed.

I don't suppose the ranting will ever stop. The loudest voices hardly ever back up their pronouncements with justifications and logical argument. Like Magic Banana, I understand what Richard Stallman is about and I believe. As it has matured Trisequel is now finally disproving the notion that Free Software cannot work.

Throughout this article I have talked of beliefs and believing. I used to wonder why software arguments always seemed to turn into religious wars. I now think the reason is that there is always more than one way of doing something and each side believes their way is best. Consequently, it becomes support for a belief system, which is just like support for a religion. With Free versus Proprietary software it comes to what you believe when you obtain your software. The Free proponents believe that having got the software they have the right to be able to modify it as they chose for their own particular needs. The proprietary software proponents are happy that they only rent the software and they believe that such software will serve them better even though they are reliant on a proprietor for maintenance of the software. If only we could all accept our differences and get along without the rants!

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