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• @david_chisnall@infosec.exchange 2026-09-15 11:32

  @soulfire@mastodon.jarexibackblaze.xyz I agree. I am 100% aligned with their goals. I want software that empowers end users and where the power of computers (as general-purpose machines that can be made to emulate any special-purpose machine that has the same I/O capability) is something that should be given to all users of computers, not just to a few. I completely disagree on every level with their strategy and their tactics. If you want people to value the FSF's four freedoms then you need to write software that is structured so that it's easy for users to extend, so that sharing those extensions with friends / collaborators / randos on the Internet is desirable because it makes collaboration easier in other contexts and where reading the source code to understand the program is easy. Instead, they write uncommented C code in big monoliths with no reusable parts (EMACS is about the only counterexample). In this world, the only freedom most end users can exercise is the freedom to use the program for any purpose, and the most value that they perceive is that they don't have to pay for it. They can conveniently say that the complexity of the GPL doesn't apply to most users because most users don't modify the source code or distribute their changes and ignore the fact that this means that their mission has failed. If most users are not able to exercise the Four Freedoms, most users will not value them and most users will not advocate for them. If most users do exercise those freedoms, the legal complexities of things like the GPL and successors become impediments. If every time a user wants to share a plugin they made to some trivially extensible program that copies some code from the core, they need to comply with a complex distribution license, then that adds friction. They're more likely to simply not bother sharing it. And maybe not even making the plugin if sharing it is too much effort. At the same time, if even 30% of end users are actually exercising these rights on a regular basis then the GPL is unnecessary because selling software that isn't extensible / modifiable and which doesn't come with redistribution rights is impossible. Get users used to being able to do things with every program they buy and they won't buy programs that can't do those things. It's actively harmful to development of a vibrant Free Software ecosystem that is able to displace proprietary software. And it's all based on a belief that licenses do things that licenses don't do, and humans behave in ways that humans don't behave.

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