"Whatever happened to relying on your own strengths, rather than caricaturizing the competition?"
This is exactly what my issue with the FSF is. Their stated goal is to deliver freedom to software users, but in my opinion they've totally failed at this in recent years by sticking to the GPL, which at this point does more harm than good.
First of all, the GPL creates an unhealthy incentives structure. In GPL software, there's little incentive to add the features that end-users need. Corporations can afford to pay developers to add features to GPL software, but end users don't stand a chance. Most developers will build the features they personally find most useful, and because of this there are very few GPL-licensed pieces of software that have superior usability for non-technical users when compared to proprietary alternatives. If a feature isn't necessary for the developers personally, it faces an uphill battle to get into the software.
But let's discount that discussion and assume that it's true that an open license produces software whose fitness for purpose matches that of closed software, for all users. Even in that case the GPL isn't helping.
Suppose facebook released their entire codebase under the GPL tomorrow. Would it actually make their users any more free? Would the risk of privacy intrusion be any less? Would it be easier to set up a competing platform? That's three times no in my book. The GPL's freedom, that you can build any software you want with it, is its biggest deficiency. By not including a standard of ethics in the license itself, developers are free to add user-hostile features. As long as you could fork the project to remove those features, this wasn't an issue, but what use would it be to fork facebook's code?
The FSF's only recourse at this point to achieve their long-term goal of user freedom is to go back to the drawing board and develop a new GPL-incompatible license that enforces a code of conduct on the part of the users _and_ developers of the software (not just a license but a contract). Basically they need to three-laws-ify software licenses. You can only exercise your freedom to adapt the software in so far that you don't hurt the freedom of others. I don't know if someone like stallman has the mental agility to make this strategy shift though, so I suspect the FSF will remain largely irrelevant to the future battle between free and closed.
This is exactly what my issue with the FSF is. Their stated goal is to deliver freedom to software users, but in my opinion they've totally failed at this in recent years by sticking to the GPL, which at this point does more harm than good.
First of all, the GPL creates an unhealthy incentives structure. In GPL software, there's little incentive to add the features that end-users need. Corporations can afford to pay developers to add features to GPL software, but end users don't stand a chance. Most developers will build the features they personally find most useful, and because of this there are very few GPL-licensed pieces of software that have superior usability for non-technical users when compared to proprietary alternatives. If a feature isn't necessary for the developers personally, it faces an uphill battle to get into the software.
But let's discount that discussion and assume that it's true that an open license produces software whose fitness for purpose matches that of closed software, for all users. Even in that case the GPL isn't helping.
Suppose facebook released their entire codebase under the GPL tomorrow. Would it actually make their users any more free? Would the risk of privacy intrusion be any less? Would it be easier to set up a competing platform? That's three times no in my book. The GPL's freedom, that you can build any software you want with it, is its biggest deficiency. By not including a standard of ethics in the license itself, developers are free to add user-hostile features. As long as you could fork the project to remove those features, this wasn't an issue, but what use would it be to fork facebook's code?
The FSF's only recourse at this point to achieve their long-term goal of user freedom is to go back to the drawing board and develop a new GPL-incompatible license that enforces a code of conduct on the part of the users _and_ developers of the software (not just a license but a contract). Basically they need to three-laws-ify software licenses. You can only exercise your freedom to adapt the software in so far that you don't hurt the freedom of others. I don't know if someone like stallman has the mental agility to make this strategy shift though, so I suspect the FSF will remain largely irrelevant to the future battle between free and closed.