Libreboot Considering To Rejoin GNU

LINK TO REDDIT THREAD: https://www.reddit.com/r/libreboot/comments/66tdds/proposal_for_libreboot_rejoin_gnu_community/ I, Leah Rowe, am seeking to submit a proposal to GNU for Libreboot to re-join the GNU project. It was previously a member of GNU between 14 May 2016 to 15 September 2016. Before I make this decision, as a result of democratic decision making in Libreboot nowadays, I need to see a lack of overall opposition from other maintainers (willingness to remain in the project after joining GNU, means that there is no meaningful opposition), and a substantial level of support by the public. The purpose of this Reddit thread is precisely to gauge public support for this decision, and based on that, whether to proceed. This is different than before, and reflects Libreboot's new democratic style of decision making. It will only be done with community approval. Libreboot left GNU on 15 September 2016, with a string of allegations and slander thrown at the FSF for a topic unrelated to Libreboot. Chaos ensued, and Libreboot's relations with FSF and GNU were heavily damaged. All of it was unnecessary. What happened should not have happened, and I'd rather not talk about it in detail in this thread, but suffice it to say, Libreboot should have never left GNU. On April 2nd, 2017, Libreboot issued a letter of peace to the community. It can be seen here, along with my own public apology for certain actions which I took during the period of September 2016 to the end of March 2017: https://libreboot.org/news/unity.html Libreboot now has a more democratic leadership, and major decisions are made with direct community involvement. Several people have access to the Libreboot project via SSH into libreboot.org, and push access to the Git repository. Patches (including those from me) are now pushed to branches and go under code review before being merged into the main development branch. Libreboot is now operating in the same way that it was before joining GNU, with the exception of the above infrastructural changes, working closely in alliance with FSF and GNU, while being separate in its own administration and acting under its own independent guidance. While this is healthy, it is far from ideal for the LIbreboot project. In my opinion, we are better off operating directly under GNU. I am strongly considering whether to submit an application for Libreboot to re-join the GNU project, and I'm leaning towards a "yes" decision. The current stable release (version 20160907) of Libreboot is from while Libreboot was a GNU member, and the infrastructure that Libreboot used from GNU (mailing lists, and the redirect from gnu.org/s/libreboot to libreboot.org) is still in place. If Libreboot were to re-join GNU, then it all falls into place and the project can continue as though it never left GNU in the first place. The conditions under which I removed Libreboot from GNU would not, if similar issues came up in the future, cause a 2nd exit. If Libreboot re-joins GNU, it joins GNU permanently and a repeat of prior chaotic events will not occur. Similar drama will not happen again. Libreboot is now only about Libreboot development, and nothing else.

force him to leave the project, sjw-cancer like "leah" rowe are the reason the oss community will destroy itself over forced politics.

>>267 >force him to leave >community will destroy itself over forced politics I don't believe a lot of thought went into this post.

>>268 I actually found that quite funny.

>>267 If you read the full message, Leah is going to step down as project lead and just be a dev. >body was too long

>>270 still around, rowe must go for good. >>268 people who poison projects like libreboot with politics that have nothing to do with the project should have no place. also, i can't wait to see drupal doing a hero.

>https://libreboot.org/news/unity.html >>were the allegations against the Free Software Foundation true? Perhaps. Perhaps not. They weren't. >>At this point, it doesn’t matter. Perhaps, but what does matter is the attempt to distribute blame in what should be a post dedicated to admitting to libreboot's own failings. If anything, you should be hanging your head in shame, not pointing fingers. >>Though the FSF may make mistakes from time to time The FSF made no mistake in this case. As for libreboot rejoining GNU, that would probably be best in the long run, but I do hope the project leadership is sound going forward. Otherwise it'll just turn into another soykafstorm sooner or later.

>>275 I think that stepping down as project head was sufficient enough. I feel that she is trying hard to apologize and make things right. Besides, her code would still need to be reviewed like any other dev and put under scrutiny of the community. I think this is good to ease the ire that she caused, and I would love to have GNU Libreboot back if GNU and the FSF folks she talked soykaf to will allow it.

FSF/GNU isn't a very good organisation. I don't like mister Rowe or GNU, as they both seek to not use free licences like the MIT one, and care more about politics than about software.

>>281 this. also, this is the reason, GNU will never enter the mainstream. normal people only see trannies and other special snowflakes throwing mud at each other, why in hell would anyone use software that's maintained by such people?

>>281 >care more about politics than about software Isn't that the whole point? Free as in freedom and all that

>>298 maybe, but as long as you need to handpick (ancient) hardware and have at least a few years linux/bsd-poweruser-background to be able to install software like libreboot, it will never become an alternative for a mainstream crowd.

>>266 I hope that it does rejoin. Leah has stepped down as head of the project, but will continue to support the development. It will be very nice once the x220, t420, x230, etc. are supported. -Sent from my libre x200

>>281 >"not use free licences like the MIT one" The GPL is the only license that defends freedom, if you use anything else you don't support freedom. >"care more about politics than about software" Focusing on the technical aspects of the software alone is a waste of time if it doesn't respect the user's freedom. There are many technically impressive pieces of software that are worse than useless because of their license.

>>281 This so much. And what makes it worse are mentalities such as: >>313 >if you use anything else you don't support freedom. Anyway, this whole thing smells of nothing but MORE fuarrrkING DRAMA When will it end?

>>314 >what makes it worse are mentalities such as Your dislike for my "mentality" doesn't make my statement any less true.

>>315 I fail to see the truth in your statement, and as I see it: it's a matter of opinion. You cannot dictate what freedom means. My point exactly is that trying to force our ideologies on the rest of the community is what absolutely is like kicking dead whales down the beach about FSF

>>313 >>316 I have to add: the black & white mentality "if you're not with us you're part of the problem" is exactly the kind of problem. I won't further discuss politics though.

>>316 The GPL forces the passing on of the same freedoms one recieves (the 4 freedoms of free software), the other weak licenses like MIT don't enforce that hence why people think they are "more free" because "muh viral gpl is virus!" but the only extra "freedom" you have gained is the "freedom" to take away other people's freedoms which should not be allowed. The GPL prevents non-free software being created from free software, the others don't have this safeguard therefore if you support freedom and want to defend it you must use the GPL, there is no other option. Lots of BSD code ends up in proprietary products because of their weak license. BSD is great and their license is free but because its not the GPL companies like Apple get it for free and it makes creation of their non-free crap easier for them, why would you want to assist them like that? Why do you want to share with people who refuse to share with you? The point of the GPL is I share with you under the condition that you share back with me, makes sense right? >>317 >if you're not with us you're part of the problem This is true though, this is one of those rare cases where it actually is black and white.

>>318 MIT licence is communist. GPL is socialist. MIT does not encourage taking away freedoms, and does not take awayy any freedom: it's capitalists that do. >Lots of BSD code ends up in proprietary products because of their weak license. And? Don't use the proprietary inferior products. >get it for free Would you rather have to pay for software? >assist I want to help all humanity be more free. GPL seeks to hurt all humanity, but it hopes to hurt you less. >why do you want to share Because I am an altruist. I gift without expectation of any returns. >under the condition >condition What a capitalist thing to say. >>302 Mainstream crowd shouldn't be catered to. They should be given freedom but no one should take time trying to push or pull them. The best you can do is to make the mainstream crowd more like us, not to make our software more for them.

>>343 >GPL seeks to hurt all humanity If I use the MIT license someone could take my code and turn into a proprietary product and then sue/takedown others for copying or cracking a "product" they didn't help make in the first place. I am averse to the MIT license generally for this reason.

>>343 >MIT does not encourage taking away freedoms Maybe not. But there exists the option for many to use the free code in proprietary binaries and make it unauditable without legal action.

>>343 >Mainstream crowd shouldn't be catered to. They should be given freedom but no one should take time trying to push or pull them. The best you can do is to make the mainstream crowd more like us, not to make our software more for them. Amen, brother. With free software this is easy because of the lack of commercial incentive.

>>343 Oh my god where to even begin with this. >Would you rather have to pay for software? I wasn't talking about me getting it for free I was talking about scumbag capitalist companies. You seem to be calling yourself a communist or at least anti-capitalist yet you freely contribute to helping the capitalists. My goal by using the GPL instead of MIT is to help all of humanity except those who harm it, they do not deserve our help/contribution. >I want to help all humanity be more free. You literally want to help people who take away other people's freedoms. >GPL seeks to hurt all humanity, but it hopes to hurt you less. No it doesn't this makes no sense. The GPL helps everyone by enforcing the rule that you CANNOT make software that takes away freedom ever. Thats the point, if everyone used the GPL proprietary software CANNOT exist. If for example BSD used the GPL the proprietary products based on it would have to start from scratch meaning more work for them and perhaps an inferior product which is good because it would make more people go directly to the free project rather than the proprietary one based on it. You seem to have the belief that all progress in software is good that if your work helps something else be better then that is good but thats not true if the thing it helps is proprietary, your work could be harming more people than it helps. When I use the GPL I ensure my code can never be used to take away people's freedom, its not possible. >What a capitalist thing to say. Probably the only thing we have in common is we are both anti-capitalist, your comment makes no sense. The condition the GPL enforces is to force you to share and sharealike, it makes it impossible to be capitalistic because you MUST share. We both want to help humanity. The only difference is I want to help those who will help others too and not those who seek to gain selfishly for themselves and at the expense of others. It comes down to a simple question, if someone wants to use my code I say "will you share too?" if yes then great, if no then fuarrrk off. With your licenses its more like "will you share too?"; "No, I will take your code, build a big closed project that i will control completely and it will mistreat its users and nobody can share it and nobody can view the code or change it and I will charge $1000 for each copy and I refuse to give you anything in return go fuarrrk yourself" and you are like "cool go for it".

Agh, all this licensing debate. Does little but harm the community. I don't give a soykaf about licensing, as long as it doesn't restrict you from some basic things. I can see good reasons to use either GPL, BSD, MIT, whatever. They are all free. What bothers me is that people get so narrow minded about this all, and even worse, try to guilt-trip you for using some piece of software because of it's motherfucking license, even worse trying to push some absolutely garbage software (looking at you GNU) through this discourse. Believe it or not, computerstuff is a technical matter, not a political one. Sure, there has to be some policy into everything, but when you focus too much into politics and start disregarding the technical side of things, particularly when in an inherently technical field, there is a problem. And it's the kind of problem that has brought forth stuff like GNU. And that is why I dislike that rms dude that goes around preaching when the only thing he has contributed has been a motherfucking text editor (glorious as it might be). And even worse this hole fuarrrking us vs them mentality that suddenly becomes the focus of some people. The first and foremost aspect that should be taking into account here has to be the technical merit of a piece of software and not the political party to which it appeals most. Politikz as we all know is mostly a cultural matter that is influenced by one's environment, and it's bound to be based mostly on emotion. But then again, this is a thread of a tranny who is making a big drama with some political group that happens to use computers as their ground of discourse. Sadly as it is, the whole drama/politics/gender identity thing will only hinder the development of the project itself, not that GNU has very high standards as to technical quality anyway. tl;dr stop the motherf*cking licence wars, and stop trying to guilt trip people into using soykafty software. We are in a technical field after all, where technical quality should be the focus.

>>364 >And that is why I dislike that rms dude that goes around preaching when the only thing he has contributed has been a motherfucking text editor (glorious as it might be). Um you do realise RMS wrote the original releases of gcc, without him there would be no free C compiler. Its so important the ACM recognised him for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbqPtM-RG1Q >The first and foremost aspect that should be taking into account here has to be the technical merit of a piece of software >We are in a technical field after all, where technical quality should be the focus. No, no, no. You are missing the whole point. It doesn't matter how good something is technically if it doesn't respect your freedom. If its proprietary it is worthless and how technically good it is doesn't matter any more. I don't care how good a piece of food tastes if it is poisoned, I'm not going to eat it. Yes many free programs are not as good as some proprietary ones but the solution is to continue to improve them or write something better not to switch to something proprietary. The proprietary programs are not "alternatives" to be judged on technical merits, they should not be considered as they fail the first consideration of freedom. Like I said whether or not some food tastes soykafty I will choose it over the tasty treat that will poison me. I'm not defending GNU technically, in many cases I agree it's not great but if its the only freedom respecting solution available then its that or nothing, proprietary solutions are not an option it is the soykafty free program or find a better free solution or write your own or use nothing at all.

>>366 >I don't care how good a piece of food tastes if it is poisoned, I'm not going to eat it Pic related Now, since there are already permissive licenses of all kinds, why necessarily push GPL? Or just as well, why necessarily push BSD/MIT over GPL? I agree with you as far as proprietary software being simply restrictive, but once we have a license, why push the politics even further and start making license wars? Since those licenses (as well as others such as CC or public domain) are already in place, why the need to go >everybody who doesn't use my license is BAHD and ought to die! The license is there, you are free to use it, and you are free to use software of your favorite license, stop going around doing political activism where we are clearly in need of better quality in the software.

>>375 Which, by the strong focus on non-technical and polemical issues (political alignment for example) leads to things like the subject of the OP, where the use of pronouns suddenly becomes an issue, or the use of words such as 'master' and 'slave' or trivializing software development so it appeals to neurotypicals or to appeal for women who wouldn't be interested otherwise, but for some reason >we neds mor womyn!

>>375 >>376 Do not put my pushing of the GPL in the same catagory as fuarrrking pronoun bullsoykaf, thanks. >>375 >Now, since there are already permissive licenses of all kinds They do not defend freedom. >why necessarily push GPL It defends freedom. >such as CC or public domain CC is good for media not code. Public Domain is always a terrible idea, I would love if copyright law just didn't exist but while it does public domain is a bad idea. >everybody who doesn't use my license is BAHD and ought to die! Anyone who doesn't use the GPL could be contributing to proprietary software because their license does not defend against it and that is bad. >stop doing political activism where we are clearly in need of better quality in the software. As I've said I don't want "better quality" software if it is proprietary. The Free Software community is doing its best to improve the quality of Free Software, maybe you could help with that.

>>379 Also I just want to point out that the difference between license "politics" and this other pronoun soykaf etc. is that people's feelings don't fuarrrking matter to the code. The license stuff has to come before the technical stuff however because the wrong license can make a project worthless and unuseable therefore why would you spead lots of time and effort on technical details only to choose the wrong license and nobody can use it anyway?

>>366 Proprietary software is bad from a technical perspective since you cannot compile it for your hardware or your OS. Use NetBSD on MIPS and you'll understand how important freedom is from a technical perspective. There's no need to bring politics into things, as politics is inherently for riajuu/normal users. Just trying to make good software will inherently mean making free software. >many free programs are not as good as some proprietary ones Software you can't even run, because you can't compile it, is good? Your meaning of good is unusual. >tasty treat that will poison me You're only offered that ``treat'' in the first place if you use hardware that is closed source and popular though. On that note, software is only as free as the hardware it runs on. >proprietary solutions are not an option Correct, as they don't run on most computers. But that is a technical reason, not a political one. >>375 >we are clearly in need of better quality in the software Yes, and hardware too.

>>379 >Public Domain is always a terrible idea Public domain is the definition of freedom though. The closer you are to it, the more free you are.

>>379 >>380 Holy soykaf, you're trying to get me mad aren't you? >freedom Let's start by this, it's a buzzword. Nuff said And again, since there are already a bunch of open source licenses, why do you still want to push a particular license? >Anyone who doesn't use the GPL could be contributing to proprietary software because their license does not defend against it and that is bad. Stop, fuarrrking stop already, trying to push your own beliefs onto others. Motherfucking stop. The other licenses are not restrictive. >Public Domain is always a terrible idea Every work that is older than 70 years (something like that) becomes public domain. How is that bad? I've seen quite some code out there that is in the public domain, what can be at all bad about it? Actually, most knowledge itself is in the public domain. Nobody gets licensed for knowing how to integrate or derivate a function. I was disregarding whoever said that GPL tries to harm mankind, but now I can see that it certainly does.

>>385 And to add to it, instead of trying to fight the restrictive mentality that brings forth your capitalist bogeyman, you're fighting those who are on your side. You're actually not defending freedom, but restrictions.

>>383 >>385 Public Domain would be great if that was all that existed like I said I wish copyright law didn't exist but it does and thats why we cannot use public domain because it allows people to create proprietary works with it. If every work created using public domain work had to itself be in the public domain then that would be fantastic but thats not the case. >>385 >since there are already a bunch of open source licenses, why do you still want to push a particular license As I've stated many times the others don't do the same job. >>387 >you're fighting those who are on your side If you are okay with your code ending up in proprietary products then you are not on my side. >>387 The only "restriction" is not to take away other people's freedom.

>>388 >If every work created using public domain work had to itself be in the public domain then that would be fantastic but thats not the case. I too want property to stop existing. But the GPL actually uses copyright law quite a lot, unlike other licences which try to minimise their use of copyright law.

>>388 > then you are not on my side. Fair enough, but now, since you don't give a flysing f about technical matters, then I suggest you go to a political community, my point the whole way was that too much political focus is hindering all sorts of technical development.

>>392 >you don't give a flysing f about technical matters For fuarrrk sake. Of course technical matters are important but the code being free matters more. The point I was making when I said the technical issues come second is that if you go now and write the most beautiful, powerful, glorious algorithm known to man that solves every problem ever with the greatest code ever written by humankind and you make it proprietary then it is fuarrrking worthless and might as well not exist. >>391 Yes because in the system we live in (which is soykaf) you have to do that. Like I said if copyright law didn't exist then this argument wouldn't be happening but since it does exist the GPL is the strongest and best license to defend freedom against our enemies. The beautiful thing about the GPL is that it uses copyright law to enforce the opposite of what copyright law was intended for, hence the term copyleft.

>>394 Well we might as well do without cryptography then. Hell, let's get rid of Real Analysis because calculus is so used in engineering >but you the knowledge doesn't suddenly get closed for the world Neither is BSD licensed code, only the forks thereof. You are absolutely free not to use them, and anyway if there is going to be proprietary code, what better than have one that is well known all over the world. >Proprietary software is BAD! I agree, but then what difference does it make if it comes from an OSS project or not at all? The evil corps are still using GPL'd code all the time, their servers most likely run Systemd/Linux and their programmers probably use vim, emacs, etc. during their development cycles. You are just jaelous of your own product you don't really want it to be free, you want to handpick those who are allowed to use it and those who don't. *BSD devs write their code for you to use, don't mind if you use them for evil, it is a tool, and as such can be used to do either good or harm. You can't restrict people from doing whatever they will, so why do you have to make it difficult for those who don't care anyway. I'm done here. I honestly wouldn't mind if they use my code to blow up nuclear reactors. Should we stop developing technology if it means someone *might* do something bad with it?

>>394 >it uses copyright law to enforce the opposite of what copyright law was intended for No, GPL fights for copyright law. Copyright law means choosing what people can do with ``intellectual property'' which the GPL sets out to do. GPL is strong copyright. GPL fights for copyright. Copyfree licences don't fight for copyright. Public domain fights against copyright.

>>397 >what difference does it make if it comes from an OSS project or not at all Because it makes it easier for them, why help them in their wrongdoing? >You are just jaelous of your own product you don't really want it to be free, you want to handpick those who are allowed to use it and those who don't. I just don't want my code to aid in the development of non-free code that takes away other people's freedom thereby making the world a worse place. I would be sad if I learned that my code was used in a product that harms its users. >The evil corps are still using GPL'd code all the time, their servers most likely run Systemd/Linux and their programmers probably use vim, emacs, etc. during their development cycles. Using a program a user is different from using it's code to build something new. >don't mind if you use them for evil The GPL doesn't either, in Free Software Freedom 0 is the freedom to run the program as you wish for any purpose. In fact there was a license that just said "do no evil" or something along those lines and the FSF said its non-free for saying that. Usage of the program is different from the program itself. Program output and program code is different. People who only use Free Software don't refuse to read results calculated by a proprietary program for example, they just refuse to use the proprietary program. For example I refuse to use Windows but if I ask you what is 10*10 and you say 20 I won't reject that because you did the calculation in Windows Calculator. For the record I use BSD stuff, their license doesn't harm me but their license has assisted in Apple in harming their users. >I'm done here. I honestly wouldn't mind if they use my code to blow up nuclear reactors. Should we stop developing technology if it means someone *might* do something bad with it? Again missing the point. The point of Free Software is to give the user freedom. If your program is free then it would respect the hacker's Freedom to run the program as he wishes for any purpose including blowing up nuclear reactors. I didn't say the program should do no harm I said it should respect the user's Freedom and do the user no harm. Its all about the user controlling the software they use. >>398 The GPL uses copyright as a tool to ensure that freedom is passed on. Thats a good thing. Normally copyright is used to say "you cannot share this" the GPL uses the same laws to say "you must share!".

This guy/girl/thing is a fuarrrking 24-7 drama powerhouse. This guy just doesn't shut up. I have no respect for for him. I wish Libreboot would fork off and continue development by a team not politicized in their decisions.

>>364 >I dislike that rms dude that goes around preaching when the only thing he has contributed has been a motherfucking text editor (glorious as it might be) And GNU. And GCC. And the entire libre community. And LibreBoot. And LibreJS. And the concept of software freedom in the first place. RMS is one of the most important figures in the FLOSS community, whether you like him or not. And no, GNU software is not "low quality". I wonder when this contrarian meme became a thing.

>>401 I'm a bit more optimistic. He/she certainly is the source of most of the libreboot drama, but with him/her stepping down I think this'll help stabilize this program's development. Plus, it would be a good addition to GNU, as there's not much of an option as far as free BIOS replacements are concerned. >>364 If one is to be concerned with the technical quality of software, how can one make an accurate assessment for proprietary software? The users only get to see its gilded surface: the software could work well, be easy to use, and have only few bugs experienced by the end user (hopefully to be patched out). What about the rest of the code though? Isn't it plausible to have bugs and other bad coding practices under the hood? Sure, they may not affect the user directly at all, but the potential for some kind of exploit is still possible. At least with FOSS, it's possible to see how and where it's bad.

>>417 Yes, see, I am the one you replied to, and of course I have standards, software MUST be Open Source if you want to even talk about it's quality. Now, I don't give a fuarrrk if it's "easy to use", that's what's bringing all this neurotypical cancer. The software must be good, it must be properly engineered, no OOP abuse for example, and no "featurez" overweight either. The code MUST be open source. But once you have open source software, trying to force everybody to use your particular flavor of open source and even worse trying to claim that you have the only recipy for Tru Freedom™, that's when harm is being done, because you don't care about the technical merit of a piece of software anymore. You put up with GNU-tier code in the name of freedom, never mind if, say OpenBSD is much better in many respects, it must not be used because it doesn't support my particular use of Freedum. I don't give a soykaf about licensing, but I do hold the standard that things must be open source. And in fact, OpenBSD has even higher standards than GNU/Linux, since the latter allows for blob drivers in kernel space. Hell, even for stuff that is proprietary I think technical merit is a good thing, for example, the software of an HP RPN calculator. In the end, again, I don't really care, the world is full of soykaf, there's a huge amount of GPL'd software that only tries to mimick the Windows methodology, and I think that's absolutely lame, but let them be, I am not going around preaching how muh software haz to be pure. What really really makes me mad is that people make use of some buzzword, and then try to guilt trip everyone with >If you don't use my favrit licenz, you are agains FREEDUMZ!!!!! That means NOTHING and it's just forcing your own political views on others, in a field where politics should absolutely not be the focus. If your whole life revolves around politics, that's great, there are many boards about politics, and you can do political activism without trying to hurt everybody. But now it seems like some people come to tech communities and don't give a fuarrrk about technical matters anymore, all they care about is the distribution of wealth and having their proper pronouns used. That only harms the community. But hey, again, the world is as it is, I can't change it, so it's maybe my fault for not ignoring this soykaf completely. It's just, it makes me mad to see this drama, and these loudmouths that ONLY care about their license.

>>426 A few more things, just to get it out of my system. Kapitalism is a human problem, and no amount of technical hoops in a particular group of a particular field is going to fix the problem. You can absolutely harm your users with GPL software. GPL doesn't prevent anyone from hurting you, you can always still use a GPL'd or any other OSS licensed code to spy on your users and hoard their private data. Everybody knows that the Facevook messenger app spies on you, yet all neurotypicals keep using it. (nevermind that it's not open source, we all know it spies on you anyway). In this sense, the #cat-v people are certainly better than the FSF people, because even though they are also preachy loudmouths, they keep their emphasis on the technical side of things, instead of trying to get politics inside. You start with politics, and as we've all seen, it soon starts being gender identity, and giving priviledged github accounts to women for no reason.

>>416 >GNU software is not "low quality" Some of it is, some of it is not. My main issue with it is the bloat, have you seen for example how huge something as simple as the 'echo' utility is in GNU?

thats great, hopefully this schism can be healed and the FOSS community has learned a lesson on centralised leadership and politics

>>426 >software MUST be Open Source Don't use the term Open Source. >I don't give a fuarrrk if it's "easy to use" You should if you care about efficency. The speed at which the user can do something with your program is a type of efficency in itself. A program that executes in 1 second is not much good if it requires 1 hour to get it to do it. >it must be properly engineered, no OOP abuse for example, and no "featurez" overweight either. Holy soykaf something we agree on. >The code MUST be open source. No it must be Free Software >trying to force everybody to use your particular flavor of open source I don't have any "flavor" of "open source" since I don't use that term. >because you don't care about the technical merit of a piece of software anymore Caring about Freedom and caring about technical merit are not mutually exclusive yet you continue to insist that they are. Freedom is the prerequist, think of it like this: if (is_free && is_technically_good), both are important but in the case that is_free is false we don't even bother to check if its technically good because it failed the first condition. >You put up with GNU-tier code in the name of freedom, never mind if, say OpenBSD is much better in many respects, it must not be used because it doesn't support my particular use of Freedum. As I've already said there is nothing wrong with using BSD Licensed code. I use BSD stuff myself. The BSD License is a Free Software license, it is however weak and doesn't defend freedom and can aid the enemy so its unfortunate that the BSD projects use it and new projects should avoid these licenses. >I don't give a soykaf about licensing Clearly. >And in fact, OpenBSD has even higher standards than GNU/Linux, since the latter allows for blob drivers in kernel space. http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Linux-libre >even for stuff that is proprietary I think technical merit is a good thing No, if it is proprietary nothing else matters, it goes in the bin. >the world is full of soykaf True. >there's a huge amount of GPL'd software that only tries to mimick the Windows methodology, and I think that's absolutely lame Okay but that has literally nothing to do with the fact they are GPL licensed though, those 2 facts are completely unrelated. You can find soykafty software under any license. What I say is all non-free software is bad, that does not mean all Free Software is good. See my sixth point above. >In a field where politics should absolutely not be the focus If we don't consider the license first and the "politics" as you say we will just end up with a truckload of software we can't use. >If your whole life revolves around politics, that's great You are being ridiculous. >without trying to hurt everybody How is trying to ensure that all users of software have freedom count as "hurting everybody"? >But now it seems like some people come to tech communities and don't give a fuarrrk about technical matters anymore I know those people exist, I am not one of those people. >all they care about is the distribution of wealth There is no wealth involved in anything I do so I have nothing to say on this. >proper pronouns used Those people are ridiculous, my pushing of the GPL should not be compared to those kinds of "politics". The difference is licensing applies directly to the project, it affects where, when and how it can be used and how it will benefit people whereas soykaf like a developer's pronouns has nothing whatsoever to do with the project. Me calling Leah him or her doesn't change Libreboot as a project in any way whatsoever and thats why its dumb. >loudmouths that ONLY care about their license See point six again. >>427 >You can absolutely harm your users with GPL software. GPL doesn't prevent anyone from hurting you, you can always still use a GPL'd or any other OSS licensed code to spy on your users and hoard their private data. Yes but Free Software is the ONLY way to defend against such things. You can look at the code, find the problem and change it so it doesn't hurt you anymore. With proprietary software you are helpless to do anything about it. >Everybody knows that the Facevook messenger app spies on you, yet all neurotypicals keep using it. I'm not sure what the point is here, most people don't use only or even mostly Free Software either, that shouldn't affect what we do. >In this sense, the #cat-v people are certainly better than the FSF people, because even though they are also preachy loudmouths, they keep their emphasis on the technical side of things, instead of trying to get politics inside. If you only focus on the technical and refuse to talk about Freedom then we may lose more code to the other side. Don't forget AT&T UNIX itself is proprietary, we are all lucky that Richard Stallman started GNU to liberate us. We owe BSD a lot too its just they cause both harm and good due to their license but I won't take away credit from them for the good parts. >You start with politics, and as we've all seen, it soon starts being gender identity, and giving priviledged github accounts to women for no reason. Why? Licensing has nothing to do with all that. Licensing has been an important issue for decades, all that other cancer is more recent and has no relation.

>>426 >OpenBSD has even higher standards than GNU/Linux, since the latter allows for blob drivers in kernel space. That's not true. Linux allows (and welcomes) proprietary blobs, GNU doesn't. GNU doesn't allow any proprietary code in it, that's why the FSF only recommends a very small subset of GNU distributions. Your gripes about GPL make no sense, though. The GPL gives users 4 freedoms and forces them to respect them if they desire to redistribute or modify the software. They're not forcing anybody to use it, in fact, if the BSD or MIT licenses are so great, why isn't there almost no people using them? And don't come with "the FSF forces people to" because nobody ever listens to the FSF: otherwise people would be talking about "GNU Social" instead of "Mastodon" and "GNU distributions" instead of "Linux distributions". The fact is, some people don't like the notion of a big corporation taking code written by us and incorporating it in their proprietary soykaf. Microsoft, Apple, Sony and Nintendo have enough money to make their own soykafty proprietary OS; yet they take BSD code (basically the BSD community worked for them for free and enabled them to make soykafty proprietary software) and barely give any credit to the original authors. The fact that such important companies are using BSD code, and yet nobody knows or cares about BSD should tell you that there's something wrong with the license allowing that soykaf.

>>437 >we are all lucky that Richard Stallman started GNU to liberate us ayyy lmao Are you sure you don't mean "soykaf all over Unix"?

>>444 Can you give an example of such a thing or are you flaming only?

>>444 You can argue all you want that the technical implementations are soykaf but that doesn't justify using proprietary software. Whether or not AT&T UNIX is more elegant than GNU is a non-issue due to the fact that we cannot use proprietary UNIX. The only solutions are either to improve GNU, use another free Unix-like system like *BSD or create another free Unix-like system.

>>437 Actually, there is no point in me arguing, because you are right, ultimately: I don't care the least bit about Freedom™

>>427 There is in fact quite a lot of political commentary on the catv website. I don't know how I feel about the 'avoid politics' argument. I agree in principle, but considering how other people are using you code is important. I think the most obvious solution is to avoid extrapolating the views of the FSF to fields outside of software. This also avoids the soykafposts calling Stallman a communist.

>>416 >And no, GNU software is not "low quality". I wonder when this contrarian meme became a thing. Actually, there's a conformist meme going around, and people have always known the GNU userland is low quality, when compared to BSD, Unix, or Plan 9.

>>437 >We owe BSD a lot too its just they cause both harm and good due to their license but I won't take away credit from them for the good parts. If you think BSD caused any harm to the world, you're mad.

>>461 The BSD projects themselves are good but due to their weak license the code can be used in proprietary software so while they themselves did no harm with their projects their choice of license has helped others do harm. For example BSD code is heavily used in iOS, the existence of iOS is harmful and the BSD projects helped create it. So that is why I say the BSDs caused harm, taken by themselves they are great but just look at all the thousands of proprietary harmful products that have been assisted and improved by the use of BSD code. Thats why I push so hard for people to only use the GPL and nothing else, its the only Free License I know of that prevents this from happening.

>>480 BSD like licenses are true freedom. Its what you use if all you care about is getting your code out to the world. Its not a restrictive mess like the GPL. On a side note how many time have you read the GPL? Unlike with BSD like licenses you need a lawyer to properly interpret and deal with GPL in a court case. And with the GPL court cases are a frequent occurrence. Many people have said it before but the GPL is about politics and other soykaf whereas BSD licenses are about actually programming and contributing your code.

>>437 >Freedom a buzzword >Don't use the term Open Source. inconvenient terms anyone? >the enemy Exactly the reason I don't like this stupid quarrel. This "the enemy" mentality makes no sense.

>>495 >BSD like licenses are true freedom The provide freedom at the first step in the chain. The problem with them is they do not ensure the freedom is passed on to everything thereafter, the GPL does that. >Its what you use if all you care about is getting your code out to the world. No, in that case you would just put it in the public domain. >Its not a restrictive mess like the GPL I don't see what the "mess" is. Its only restriction is to preserve freedom for all. >On a side note how many time have you read the GPL? I don't remember, I think I read all of GPLv2 and all or at least most of v3, v3 is obviously longer. It's been a while I will probably re-read them soon. >Unlike with BSD like licenses you need a lawyer to properly interpret and deal with GPL in a court case. Thats because the GPL actually defends Freedom whereas the BSD licenses don't. Its not hard to understand something that basically says nothing at all. >And with the GPL court cases are a frequent occurrence. Good, I'm glad to hear it. How is that bad? >Many people have said it before but the GPL is about politics and other soykaf Defending freedom is not "soykaf" >BSD licenses are about actually programming and contributing your code. Yeah, contributing it for free to proprietary software vendors so they can use it to harm users, great job! >>497 >Exactly the reason I don't like this stupid quarrel. This "the enemy" mentality makes no sense. Proprietary software vendors are the enemy of the Free world, if you disagree then you are the enemy too. Anyone who tries to take away my freedom is my enemy.

>>495 I wouldn't say one is more free than the other. BSD is freedom for developers. Putting code under the BSD license makes it easier for other developers to use, but it doesn't help the users of that software. GPL is freedom for users. It may be a pain for developers, but whoever uses a GPL program has the power to use their program in new ways. The free software movement sees the users as contributors. That's why many successful free software projects are modular programs, like Emacs. Anyone can script Emacs; it even comes with a manual. Successful free software is designed to encourage modification. Things like Firefox plugins, GIMP scripts, Kernel modules, and Wesnoth campaigns all fit into the same spirit. The free software mind set can even be seen in the modding communities of proprietary games or in offices where workers share Visual Basic scripts. When a programmable piece of software is under the GPL, the line between using the software and altering it is blurred. The users gain control over their computer through control over their programs. BSD is not like the GPL. BSD software is rarely as modular, is often only useful to developers, and even when it is modular it does not blur the line between use and modification, because true modification is near impossible and illegal with proprietary software. In this sense, BSD is less free. BSD software does not empower users. BSD gives developers the freedom to lock users out, but at the cost of user freedom. >On a side note how many time have you read the GPL? Unlike with BSD like licenses you need a lawyer to properly interpret and deal with GPL in a court case. The GPL is short and easy to read. It only seems long when compared to very short licenses, like a BSD license. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

>>507 >BSD is not like the GPL. BSD software is rarely as modular You are confusing BSD licensed software and BSD the OS. The OS is not meant to be modular its meant to be developed as a whole system. This is a very confusing concept to someone who only uses linux. BSD licensed software could be anything so its hardly any more or less modular then a piece of GPLed software. >>499 >Good, I'm glad to hear it. How is that bad? Its bad because you can't continue to program when you caught up in the middle of a court case. In fact the whole reason linux even exists is because BSD was held up in a lawsuit. Also they suck money that could have been used to pay programmers to contribute more, or to advocate said free software. >Yeah, contributing it for free to proprietary software vendors so they can use it to harm users, great job! This idea that proprietary software harms others is rather lame. Its of no harm to me if I don't use it so why would care. In fact I would be happy to have a software vendor contributing back to my project and making it better. >Anyone who tries to take away my freedom is my enemy. No one is taking away your freedom by not using the GPL. Actually I find it quite humorous that speak so much about freedom yet you seek to limit the freedom of others down the line by using the GPL. As you have said yourself the GPL forces the release of code down the line under the GPL. That act of forcing means that code released under the GPL is never truly free.

>>507 Finally, for fuarrrk's sake, a good argument in favor or GPL that isn't a buzzword. It's mostly cultural, but I got to say, these arguments are not too bad. Of course, the whole Unix (and thus the BSD) ecosystem is meant to empower the user, it is no different from Emacs in a way, they just come from a different background, which has little to do with licensing. >>499 >>Exactly the reason I don't like this stupid quarrel. This "the enemy" mentality makes no sense. Proprietary software vendors are the enemy of the Free world, if you disagree then you are the enemy too. Anyone who tries to take away my freedom is my enemy. If you're not part of my solution, you're part of the problem. Are you aware things are not motherfucking black & white, and that there are several parties? Why am I even arguing with you? >>508 >Actually I find it quite humorous that speak so much about freedom yet you seek to limit the freedom of others down the line by using the GPL. Couldn't have said it better

>>510 Eh fuarrrked up the memearrowing on the second section there

>>507 >The GPL is short and easy to read. On the webpage with the pretty formatting it seems that way yes, when I was reading it it was in a plain text editor with no nice formatting and so was a huge wall of text that probably seemed longer than it is and took longer to read than normal. >>508 >The OS is not meant to be modular its meant to be developed as a whole system. This is a very confusing concept to someone who only uses linux. The BSD's, Linux and GNU are kind of 3 points on that spectrum. The BSD's being a whole system as one, Linux being a Monolithic kernel design so the kernel is one big piece and then we have GNU that is so modular that the HURD took years to get working due to the complexities of its modular design. >Its bad because you can't continue to program when you caught up in the middle of a court case. In fact the whole reason linux even exists is because BSD was held up in a lawsuit. Also they suck money that could have been used to pay programmers to contribute more, or to advocate said free software. My point was the court cases are good because it means people are actively defending Freedom instead of getting walked over, the GPL gives developers a good legal tool to fight with when proprietary companies try to steal from the free world. As for the BSD lawsuit even though I disagree with the very laws they broke I still think they deserved what happened for being so dumb, what they did was just retarded and they had to know they would get in trouble for it. >This idea that proprietary software harms others is rather lame. It's a fact. >Its of no harm to me if I don't use it so why would care. Because its existence is bad for everyone, and you are forced to use it at different times and it will only get worse. >In fact I would be happy to have a software vendor contributing back to my project and making it better. A few do that but most don't, they will just take it, use it and not say thank you. The GPL is the only license that requires giving back. >Actually I find it quite humorous that speak so much about freedom yet you seek to limit the freedom of others down the line by using the GPL. Trying to force people to have freedom is not taking away their freedom. >That act of forcing means that code released under the GPL is never truly free. The whole point is to enforce passing on of freedom. The "freedom" it takes away by doing that is the "freedom" to take away other people's freedom which should not be a "freedom" you have. Its the only way to defend freedom of code forever. If the GPL didn't have that restriction then this would happen: [ Program Under GPL ] --> [Forked Under BSD ] --> [Used in Proprietary Program] --> User Not Free :( The only thing the GPL can do to stop this is forcing everyone to use the GPL so we get: [ Program Under GPL ] --> [ Program Under GPL ] --> [ Program Under GPL ] --> User Still Free :)

>>510 >Are you aware things are not motherfucking black & white, and that there are several parties? This is black & white. There are 2 parties, those who are on the side of software freedom and those who aren't. >Why am I even arguing with you? I don't know. >the whole Unix (and thus the BSD) ecosystem is meant to empower the user AT&T UNIX was proprietary and so did nothing to empower the user.

>>513 >UNIX did nothing to empower the user. Exactly, and that's why Stallman created the GNU system as a UNIX-like replacement that is freedom-respecting software.

>>508 >You are confusing BSD licensed software and BSD the OS. >The OS is not meant to be modular its meant to be developed as a whole system. This is a very confusing concept to someone who only uses linux. >BSD licensed software could be anything so its hardly any more or less modular then a piece of GPLed software. I'm under the impression most existing BSD software is monolithic. I could be wrong, since I'm making an assumption based off of my own experience and I'm more familiar with the Linux ecosystem, but in practice, BSD software I know tends not to be programmable or is meant solely for other developers. I mentioned GIMP, Battle of Wesnoth, and Emacs. Does the BSD community have anything like those? If not, then do you think the lack of programmable software has nothing to do with the license choice? >>512 >On the webpage with the pretty formatting it seems that way yes, when I was reading it it was in a plain text editor with no nice formatting and so was a huge wall of text that probably seemed longer than it is and took longer to read than normal. There are entire websites filled with much longer pieces with the same formatting and people have been able to read them fine, http://www.textfiles.com/ Most of the RFCs, much longer documents, are available in plain text or at least look very similar to the plain text version. https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1738.txt I don't see how the GPL is any harder to read then any other text file.

>>515 >Does the BSD community have anything like those? I'm can't think of any off the top of my head, but I don't really think that the choice of license has anything to do with whether or not the program is hackable. Most of the suckless programs are licensed under the MIT license by the way, which is in the same vain as the 2 and 3 Clause BSD licenses. And those programs are meant to be hacked and extended. I'm saging because I entered this thread through /mega/ and I don't think it was meant to be a licensing discussion thread.

>>480 You're trying to blame BSD for what Apple has done? Please don't blame innocents.

>>518 Yes because they let it happen with soykaf license, if BSD used the GPL it could not have happened.

>>519 If they had done that then the BSD code would have never been used . No one including big corporations wants to deal with the restrictions the GPL imposes. Its better that we know apple has included some quality tools with their terrible OS instead of just writing their own terrible replacements. There have been good arguments for the GPL in this thread yours however have not been.

>>520 >If they had done that then the BSD code would have never been used . No one including big corporations wants to deal with the restrictions the GPL imposes. Um thats exactly the point. >Its better that we know apple has included some quality tools with their terrible OS instead of just writing their own terrible replacements. No, its better if its soykaf either so less people use it or at least so the people who do use it have a worse time. >There have been good arguments for the GPL in this thread yours however have not been. Your definition of a "good argument" is any that avoids the issue of freedom and ignores what the GPL is actually for.

>>520 >If they had done that then the BSD code would have never been used . No one including big corporations wants to deal with the restrictions the GPL imposes. But there are tons of companies that use GPL'd software.